A group of women shelf stackers are demanding pay parity with the warehouse workers.

I am in favour of equal pay but lately the fashion seems to be to compare different jobs and then demand equal pay.

I have worked as a shelf stacker and I saw on a daily basis the work the warehouse guys did. It was hard physical labour loading and unloading lorry's in the open in all weathers. The rest of the warehouse was unheated. In short I did not begrudge the guys as stacking shelves was indoors and not as physically taxing. But these days it seems that physical labour doesn't have a value when it comes to equal pay. If I was Tesco I would send these women to work in the warehouse for a week and then see if they still felt it was the same job. My guess is that they will win their case.

Well am I being a dinosaur? Or do you agree that we undervalue physical labour when comparing jobs.

One more point

So you support Tesco paying employees less?

Paua oouaarancì Irà chiyeah Ishé galé ma ba oo ah

Every little helps

Living down here does have some advantages. At least you can see them cry.

As I said previously I don't believe the jobs are comparable, now granted I have not worked for Tesco so I could be wrong. But if the role is what I believe it is not many women would want to do it.

I worked in the Food hall the guys did all the heavy lifting, the women would often ask us for help in that task. I have no problem with that because that was a minor part of the role. From what I saw of the warehouse it was pretty much all heavy lifting which is why I decided not to apply for a job as I knew I couldn't hack it.

As for the wages of supermarket staff I agree they should all be paid more I started on minimum wage getting up at 4.30am so you will get no argument from me on the meager money they earn. However I don't believe equal pay is the way to go. This is being brought by a group of women what about the male shelf stackers?

FYI
Another poster mentioned banking. I worked for Barclays Head Office before I retired. My grade was the equivalent of a regional branch manger which was ridiculous as they would have had far more responsibility. However I worked in IT so they had to give me the grade to fit the salary. It may well be that Tesco are at fault because of the way they structure their jobs. The devil is in the detail.

Edited by Badger11 (07 Feb 2018 1.48pm)

One more point

I bet warehouse workers also have some time pressure in getting one lorry unloaded so there's space ready for the next one. The night stackers may also have similar time pressure. Daytime stackers may have pressure but I bet it's not the same judging by the workrate, chatting and customers in the way.

The lorries have to be in and out and shelves replenished by opening time or whenever night staff go. I bet it's not such a big deal if a certain load of stuff(s) isn't done in this hour or shift.

Completely ridiculous. As above, offer them a trial in the warehouse. They'd last half a day I bet.

COYP

Supermarkets in the very near future will be paying £10 per hour minimum and the big 3 of Tesco, Sainsburys and Asda are laying off loads of the managers in between store manager and shelf stackers. It was in the news 2 weeks ago.

There is readjusting going on and raising of wages for the lowest paid but to pay people the same for less demanding work isn't the way to go. When this happens the few in this case will probably complain they're having to work 10% harder. Tough. That's business, unless you want Aldi and Lidl to crush the whole store and company.

Edited by Rudi Hedman (07 Feb 2018 5.10pm)

COYP