Frontline supermarket workers deserve equal pay

Editor,

With lockdown measures now in place for a month, the general public has come to appreciate the efforts of supermarket staff working on the frontline.

Finally, they are being recognised as key workers and people are starting to say what law firm Leigh Day has being saying all along – shop workers deserve to be paid fairly.

As demand has increased, supermarket workers have been praised for their dedication.

But recognition isn’t all they need.

What they need most is equal pay.

Each day they are putting themselves at an increased risk to keep everyone else’s fridges and cupboards stocked.

Yet they are paid less than their colleagues in warehouses and distribution centres.

To us at Leigh Day that doesn’t seem right.

And that’s why we are acting for more than 40,000 supermarket workers in their equal pay battle.

We are challenging this unequal situation for the women and men working long hours in stores and helping the rest of us to keep some sense of normality in these uncertain times.

But there are tens of thousands of other shop floor employees who Leigh Day is not yet supporting and who’d we urge to join our Equal Pay Now campaign.

It shouldn’t have taken a pandemic for Britain to recognise the value of supermarket workers, but now that attitudes are taking a welcome turn, it’s time they are paid a wage that reflects the hard work they do.

More information about the claims can be found at: www.equalpaynow.co.uk

Chris Benson

Partner in the Leigh Day employment team

The views expressed are those of the author of the letter and not those of Oldham Chronicle.