I think just about all of the posts miss the point. The requirement is that there is equal pay for work of equal value - hence the tribunal will look at the levels of skill required not physical strength.
Thus it is difficult to see how warehouse work is intrinsically more skilled than shelf stacking and working on the tills unless evidence is provided.
The traditional and most obvious example is that finally the women at Fords making upholstery were given the same pay as men doing equally skilled work.
So no the world has not gone bonkers it is about fair reward for work of equal value.
I think your right that we did slightly veer away from the actual issue.
Fair reward for work of equal value sounds nice but that is a real can of worms to be opening. What do you class as equal ? Equal amount of effort ? How do you compare physically taxing jobs with those that are more mentally straining. Those skilled and unskilled ? What classes as skilled ? Equal amount of money generated for the business you work for ?
It also has a knock on effect. As I understand it Cashiers were on around £8 per hour and Warehouse workers around £10 per hour. So lets put up cashiers jobs up to £10 per hour.
Once in a pay rise meeting with management argued the case that we were not well paid for what we did where I work. True we can earn a decent wage for Labouring but the actual rate of pay I argued wasn't that good. Lets say I earn £550 per week take home pay. That initially sounds like decent pay for a Labourer which is what the company would argue. I'd argue that firstly as standard although contracted to 37 hours I work 48 hours a week as most of my colleagues do. Some will work 60-70 hours per week and be paid accordingly. Part of my wage is made up of a night shift allowance around £100 top line so roughly £65 after stoppages. Then you have 11 hours overtime pay which off the top of my head after stoppages would be around £120. My job as one of the hardest jobs (or jobs that nobody wants) left in the foundry comes with another bonus depending on how hard you graft and I get around £70 per week after stoppages, most of the foundry workers wouldn't get anything like this even though they too have some rather demanding jobs for example a Pourer gets around £16 per week bonus. So if you took a wage of a day shift worker on a basic 37 hour week his wage might just exceed that of a Tesco's cashier in take home pay terms probably by £70-£80. Take into account that a Tescos employee probably get something like 10% off there weekly shop plus any other product that Tesco offer which basically covers everything from Mobile Phones, Loans, clothes, insurance and pretty much anything else really these days then the wages are not that far removed from each other.
So as upper management squirmed in their seats I basically pointed out that if they wished to keep reducing the pay gap by squeezing us as much as possible then very shortly they'd find themselves with no staff because I'm certainly not swinging a hammer all night for a few sheckels more than the girls on the till. I probably wouldn't be alone in doing a shitty job for a few extra quid and I'd suggest that if Tesco's started paying £10 per hour for people to sit on the checkouts then they'd have even larger pile of application forms sitting on their desks and one of them would most probably be mine :lol:
My Mrs is a manager in the Dental industry and fully trained Dental Nurses wouldn't be on much more than £10 per hour in most cases. She already struggles to get decent staff basically because there are nicer jobs (than looking in peoples mouths) that require far less training for similar rates of pay.
I'd love to see them get into this discussion with footballers wages not re-them being overpaid in general as whilst fans are prepared to pay the prices of the tickets and pay their Sky Sports subscription deals then they are generating what they earn but what would contribute to an equal contribution to the team in terms of pay ? I'm sure we've all seen that over paid striker who's bloody useless whilst the unsung hero of our club is on a 5th of the money but putting a shift in every week.
Its an impossible subject to get to the bottom of in my view and the basic premise is that any job is only worth what someone is prepared to pay for it and what someone is willing to do it for. If as a cashier you think your skills and values of what you contribute to a company aren't rewarded the way they should be then take your skills to someone who values them. If you think that the warehouse work is paid better and its an equal job then by all means apply for the next vacancy that comes up.
Perhaps its just my experience but I've found most the cashiers, shop assistants, waitresses and in general most people in the customer service industry leaving me with the feeling of your lucky to have a job because I certainly wouldn't pay them a nicker for their efforts or general lack of. Occasionally whether it be in a shop or a restaurant or even actually my local chip shop I come across somebody who's polite, helpful and bright as a button and it always catches me by surprise. One of the girls who works at my local chippy should literally be giving lectures in how to provide customer service she is brilliant. I've actually told her she's completely wasted there and told her boss he should be paying her more. It probably struck her as strange and I'm probably labelled as that "weird bloke" but its such a refreshing change when you do bump into someone who is good at their job in that sector I felt it had to be said. Its strange to think that's she's wrapping chips for minimum wage and out there some where there are big sales reps or retail managers with half the skills she has probably on 100k per year and the sad thing is she's probably blissfully unaware that she has a lot more about her than a lot of them.
Tuesdays morning waffle out of my system, cheers.
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