A spot of good news for Britain. Next has won its appeal and may go on paying warehouse workers more than “equal value” retail workers. I’ve written about this case in Equality Act 2010, The Equal Pay Madness Just Got Madder and The Apples and Oranges Tribunal, and discussed it at length on the CapX podcast.

Note how crazy the headline is:

The landmark ruling allows the retailer to pay warehouse workers more than shop staff on the basis it costs more to recruit and retain them.

Pay more to recruit and retain people? A landmark! Eight years of litigation to establish that wages have something to do with supply and demand.

Some of the crazy has been disciplined. The Leeds tribunal had asked why Next failed to raise the pay of retail workers to the warehouse level. Wrong question, said Mr Justice Bourne on appeal. The right question is why Next needed to pay the warehouse workers more. It did so, he found, for sound business reasons, and those reasons did not apply to retail. Hilariously, he also noted that Next’s warehouses were 47.2% female as opposed to the retail workers who were 77.5% female. In other words, there was more gender equality in the warehouses.

Don’t celebrate too hard. Eight years of litigation isn’t over, Next lost on the basic finding of equal value, and everyone is appealing. Meanwhile the government is moving to replace market wages with committee wages. The consultation closing in October would extend equal-value comparisons to race and disability and it would extend the law up the supply chain so Next’s potential escape route of contracting-out warehouses would be foreclosed. In short, Bourne’s reason is lawful today. Whether it survives the future is another matter.

Hat tip: Stephen S. and Robert W.