‘People tend to think these battles have been won’: Next equal pay claimant on fight for recognition

Helen Scarsbrook says company, which is appealing against the ruling, hasn’t recognised value of female shop floor staff

During an average shift on the shop floor at Next, Helen Scarsbrook has to remain polite and keep smiling while she makes split-second judgments about which customers need help and which need to be tactfully discouraged from shoplifting and ushered out of the store.

She and her mostly female colleagues are on their feet for long stretches and regularly do heavy lifting as new stock arrives at the back of the shop. She is confident that her work in one of Next’s 466 UK stores is just as challenging, or more so, as the jobs performed by Next’s mostly male warehouse workers, who have always received higher rates of pay.

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