General view of an Asda sign at the supermarket’s head office in Leeds
TENS of thousands of Asda workers, mostly women, could be on track to receive a historic payout after a decade-long battle in a landmark case for pay equality.
An employment tribunal has ruled that most shopworkers involved in the case have jobs of equal value to higher-paid positions in Asda’s warehouses.
GMB union, along with legal firm Leigh Day, brought the case against the supermarket, arguing that the predominantly female retail workforce is paid up to £3.74 per hour less than their mostly male warehouse counterparts.
The tribunal compared the jobs of 14 women lead claimants working on the shop floor with 17 warehouse roles.
It found 11 claimants to be in jobs of “equal value” to at least some of the warehouse roles, with the tribunal describing it as a “mixed picture.”
One other claimant, a section leader, was found to be equal to all of them.
The outcome means that the Asda workers have clinched victory in two out of three stages of their equal pay claim, first launched in 2014.
Oceana UK has moved forward with its legal challenge over fossil fuel exploration licences in UK waters, filing its case at the High Court. In response to the initial threat to take the government to court over the harm to UK seas, ahead of the election, the previous government stated that it would defend the decision.
Oceana and other members of the Ocean Alliance Against Offshore Drilling have now written to Ed Miliband, the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, urging the new government to accelerate the UK’s move away from fossil fuels and concede Oceana’s case.
Oceana UK, who is represented by law firm Leigh Day, say the previous government’s decision to issue 31 new oil and gas licences in May 2024 was unlawful because it failed to consider the extreme impact of oil spills on marine life, as well as on several other grounds.
The letter – signed by Greenpeace UK, Friends of the Earth Scotland, Rewilding Britain, Oceana and others – highlights Oceana UK’s legal challenge to the new oil and gas licences, and asks that the Secretary of State ‘brings an end’ to the licences which overlap with several areas designated for wildlife.
It invites the government to concede the claim, which has now been lodged with the High Court, and signal a ‘clear departure’ from the reliance on fossil fuels, which it argues had been the case under the previous government.
Naomi Tilley, Campaign Lead at Oceana UK, said:
“These licences were issued with a shocking disregard for expert advice, as well as our seas, climate and future. With its commitment to end oil and gas licences, the new government has started down a world-leading path, and now it has a crucial opportunity to honour the spirit of that ambition, by calling time once and for all on these licences and the destruction and degradation caused by Big Oil running roughshod over our ocean.”
Leigh Day’s Rowan Smith, who represents Oceana UK along with Carol Day, said:
“Our client is legitimately frustrated that advice from expert bodies set up to conserve the marine environment was effectively ignored; advice which condemns the plans for further licensing due to the damage drilling would cause to marine wildlife and the knock-on climate effects from the greenhouse gases generated when the extracted fossil fuels are used. We are prepared to argue, on behalf of Oceana UK, that the assessments on protected sites failed to properly acknowledge these issues. However, our client hopes that its letter to the Secretary of State, drawing attention to this case, will ultimately persuade the government to revoke these licences.”
Richard Benwell, Chief Executive of Wildlife and Countryside Link, who signed the letter, said:
“New oil and gas licensing in and around Marine Protected Areas poses serious and even irreversible risks to marine wildlife and habitats and is utterly at odds with any common sense understanding of a protected area. It also means directly ignoring warnings from government scientific advisors who have strongly advised against fossil fuel developments in these sensitive sites. The government should withdraw licensing areas that overlap with Marine Protected Areas and regulate to end all damaging industrial activities in these critical areas for wildlife, including overfishing and fossil fuel industries.”
The claim will challenge the ‘Appropriate Assessments’ made by the former Secretary of State under the Conservative administration, arguing they largely ignored advice from independent government experts about the potential effects on sensitive Marine Protected Areas (MPAs).
These bodies – the Joint Nature Conservation Committee and Natural England – advised that they could not conclude that the drilling will have no adverse effect on the designated sites. More than a third of the licences overlap with MPAs, which were established to protect habitats and species that are essential for ocean health.
Oceana UK also argues that the assessments were flawed in several other ways, such as ignoring the impact of potential oil spills and overlooking the significant impact of the climate crisis on both the marine wildlife and the wider climate.
The grounds of the claim argue that the then Secretary of State:
Failed to consider the impact of oil and gas industry accidents (including oil spills and discharges) on MPAs and their conservation features.
Failed to consider the ongoing impact of the climate crisis on the marine environments set to be impacted by these licenses, and failed to consider the full climate impact of the licensed activity, including scope 3 emissions (indirect emissions, such as from the use of the extracted oil and gas).
Relied on a flawed assumption that only 50% of licensed drilling will actually take place.
Failed adequately to assess the cumulative impacts of the licensed activity on the relevant sites.
Failed to pay due regard to the advice of the JNCC and Natural England in relation to the matters raised by several of the grounds above.
Original article by Andrew Wasley republished from TBIJ under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
The river Wye.
The case will argue the meat giant knew of the potential environmental consequences of industrial-scale chicken farming
The US meat and grain giant Cargill must compensate those affected by pollution in the River Wye or face court proceedings, lawyers preparing to sue the company have warned.
Legal papers served to the company by the law firm Leigh Day say hundreds of people have suffered loss and damage because of pollution linked to growing industrial chicken farming in the region. The firm also demands that Cargill cleans up the river.
Leigh Day’s letter to the company, seen by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ), also accuses two of Cargill’s UK entities – Avara Foods and Freemans of Newent – of jointly polluting the river with phosphorus. The companies have two months to respond to the allegations.
Natural England downgraded the river’s health rating last year, citing higher phosphorus levels and increased eutrophication – a phenomenon where a build-up of nutrients prompts some plants to grow excessively, depleting oxygen levels.
“Chicken manure is high in phosphorus, having a concentration four to five times higher than other forms of manure,” Leigh Day’s letter states.
Pollution of the Wye has become a national issue as the number of chicken farms nearby has grown. Today, Avara Foods is responsible for more than four fifths of the 20 million birds reared in the region, according to Leigh Day.
Until recently, waste from the farms was frequently spread on nearby land as a fertiliser, where it would run into adjacent waterways, including the Wye and its tributaries.
In the legal papers, Leigh Day accuses Cargill, Avara and Freemans of being responsible for “substantial water quality degradation and widespread algal blooms”, as well as “species decline [and] a loss of income from tourism, water sports, fishing, hospitality and other local businesses”.
Local house prices have also been affected, the letter notes, along with the quality of life for residents living next to industrial-scale farms.
Initially, Leigh Day only named Avara as a defendant, but in May it announced that Cargill would also face action. Avara is a joint venture between Cargill and Faccenda Foods – a major UK poultry processor. There are more than 100 intensive poultry farms in the Wye Valley over which Avara, and thus Cargill, “has significant legal and factual control”, Leigh Day claims.
Avara has previously said it is “confident that there is no case to defend” and that Leigh Day’s civil claim is “a year-old, opportunistic attempt to profit from a serious environmental issue”.
“It has no merit and is not supported by evidence or expert opinion,” the company said in March. “It ignores the long-standing use of phosphate-rich fertiliser by arable farms as well as the clear scientific data showing the issue of excess phosphorus considerably pre-dates the growth of poultry farms in the Wye catchment.”
The letter also notes that Avara supplies 4 million chickens to the UK retail, hospitality and food service sectors, and is a supermarket poultry supplier.
The case will argue that Cargill, which is headquartered in Minnesota but operates around the world, must share responsibility for the pollution of the Wye and related waterways.
Cargill knew of the potential consequences of industrial-scale chicken farming because of similar legal challenges in the US, Leigh Day argues. There, waste from poultry farms from a number of companies – including Cargill – was found to have contributed to historic river pollution in Oklahoma.
Leigh Day’s letter adds that Cargill’s importing of phosphorus-rich soy, which is then used to make poultry feed, has also contributed to the problem. TBIJ previously uncovered how Cargill soy from Brazil is shipped to Liverpool, where it is processed for use in animal feed at farms that supply Avara.
Leigh Day partner Oliver Holland told TBIJ: “We hope that Avara and Cargill will take this opportunity to engage constructively with the substance of the claim and work with us to avoid court proceedings being issued. However, if they do not, our clients will be issuing court proceedings and looking to proceed with this claim through the high court.”
Original article by Andrew Wasley republished from TBIJ under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Chris Packham by Garry Knight from London, England – People's Walk for Wildlife 2018 – 04, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=76235680
A judge will decide whether it was lawful for ministers to decide to water down the policies, with a hearing to take place later this year.
Chris Packham has been granted permission for a judicial review of the Government’s decision to reverse some of its green policies.
The naturalist and TV presenter sent a challenge to Prime MinisterRishi Sunak in October after the Government watered down policies aimed at helping to cut UK climate-warming emissions to zero overall by 2050, known as net zero.
Mr Sunak announced the rollback in September, which included delaying the ban on the sale of new diesel and petrol cars from 2030 to 2035, reducing the phase-out of gas boilers from 100% to 80% by 2035, and scrapping the requirement for energy efficiency upgrades for homes.
The Prime Minister said the UK’s approach to net zero was imposing “unacceptable costs on hard-pressed British families”.
In an announcement on Monday, law firm Leigh Day, which is representing Mr Packham, said Mr Justice Eyre had granted permission for the legal challenge to be heard in court.
The legal team said a judge will decide whether it was lawful for ministers to decide to water down the policies, with a hearing to take place later this year.
…
Carol Day, a Leigh Day solicitor representing the TV star, said: “Mr Packham will argue that it cannot be lawful for the Government to abandon carefully thought-out policies designed to achieve net zero targets without having other measures in place.
“It would make the Government’s report to Parliament under the Climate Change Act nothing more than a snapshot in time.”
A Department for Energy Security and Net Zero spokesperson said: “We strongly reject these claims and will be robustly defending this challenge.
