A senior female Co-op executive has won £100,000 in a major equal pay case after she was unfairly paid less than her male colleagues.
Samantha Walker was graded as ‘partially achieving’ by her boss, despite working at the same level as her male colleagues, some of whom were graded as ‘outstanding’.
Ms Walker, who earned £425,000-a-year, argued that she was sacked for bringing up grievances to her managers about women earning less.
She then made headlines in 2018 when she successfully brought an equal pay and unfair dismissal claim against the company, although the tribunal did not agree that her sacking was the result of discrimination.
An independent company found that her work was at the same level or higher than her male co-workers.
Incredibly, it has taken almost 10 years since leaving the company for her compensation to be settled and she has now received £101,373.
Ms Walker was employed by the Co-operative between March 2013 until her notice period expired in April 2017.
She was initially appointed as director of group HR strategic projects and earned a salary of £190,000 with a bonus of £50,000 after being awarded a performance rating of ‘outstanding’ at the end of 2013.
Following the unexpected departure of a colleague, she was invited to become the group chief HR officer in February 2014 – with a base salary of £500,000.
However this was later set at £425,000 following restructuring meetings – in which she said she ‘pushed back a little’ – because she was newly promoted.
Five of the seven executives roles were to be undertaken by men, although a third woman joined when it was expanded to eight roles.
The justification for the reduction was said to be because of the ‘varying levels of skill and experience within the executive team’ and increasing her salary to £500,000 ‘seemed excessive’.
Yet an independent assessment of executive roles in January 2015 by the Hay Group found that her role was as high or higher than the other male executives within the company.
She said that she felt like she was doing the role of the ‘chief people officer’ and wanted to discuss this further at an end-of-year meeting in December 2015 with chief operating officer Richard Pennycook.
She said that she planned to marry her partner and therefore would be taking on a new family and she wanted a role where she could have time off in the school holidays to be with them.
In a feedback form of November 2015, Mr Pennycook scored her 100 per cent on nine of the 22 questions and on 11 of them he scored her higher than she rated herself.
In December 2015, Ms Walker and Mr Pennycook had a phone conversation in which she suggested that she could go part time like other executive members but with no change in pay – which would allow her to be ‘recognised and valued alongside my male peers’.
Mr Pennycook ‘categorically confirmed’ that she never raise any concerns about a gender pay gap or equal pay at the executive level.
Then, in February 2016 Mr Pennycook sent an email to the group chairman with the executive summaries for 2015 – in which he had graded Ms Walker as ‘partially achieving’ – the second lowest available grade.
Two other male colleagues were also listed as ‘partially achieving’.
He summarised by saying ‘overall disappointing year for Sam, reflected in the grading’.
Ms Walker said that the process had been ‘unfair, unreasonable and disregarded her contractual entitlements’ and that her colleagues were aware of the conversations she was having.
She said that the turning point was when she raised the equal pay issue.
In April 2016, the company gave her 12 months notice to terminate her employment and she never returned after this notice period, which the company later conceded was an unfair dismissal on procedural grounds.
Ms Walker won her employment tribunal case in Manchester in 2018 but it took almost a decade to decide her compensation.
In the newly published judgement, she was awarded £101,373 in compensation after her claims of unfair dismissal, equal pay and sex discrimination were upheld.
Her other complaints including disability discrimination and that she had made protected disclosures were dismissed.
A Co-op spokesman said: ‘This case relates to events from almost a decade ago and has now concluded. The tribunal found that Ms Walker was not dismissed because of complaints about equal pay or because of her sex.
‘While the tribunal identified a flaw in a historic performance appraisal process, it also found that the dismissal itself was substantively fair.’
