Because driving forklifts, operating heavy machinery, and moving around fragile loads all day is the same as unpacking some cans and putting them on a shelf
Not meaning to undermine this point, but there's also considerable physical workload within the supermarket itself.
This can include the use of heavy machinery, including forklifts in certain sizable shops. There are also the crushers, and the pallet carriers which you need training to use.
Then, there's lots of moving around of large and heavy trolleys.
And after that you get to spending hours on end crouching and squatting and stretching to sort out aisles and set goods out.
It's a damn tiring job, as I can attest to, having worked in a supermarket.
Furthermore my dad has worked at Asda both on a shopfloor, and doing night shifts at a warehouse.
He would definitely say that the warehouse is harder work, but being on the shopfloor isn't painless either.
I can't really side with those pursuing the lawsuit in this.
There is a difference in pay between the two jobs, but it's not down to the shopfloor workers being less skilled, or even being women (because there are plenty of men who work shopfloors too, it's close to 50/50).
It's just a case of the warehouse workers working in a more dangerous environment, doing a lot more dangerous work, and as is often the case, working nights too (There are shopfloor jobs that work nights, but not all Asda's are open 24/7).
On top of that, on account of Sunday Trading Laws, Supermarket shopfloors aren't open all day on a Sunday, whereas Warehouses are.
I can understand being a bit annoyed at being paid less than other similar-levelled workers, but I don't think there's pay discrimination going on here.
Afterall, women can apply to work in the warehouses too. And they can't legally be discriminated against on account of their gender when applying for the position (I know that's not a guarantee of it not happening, but it's less likely to be ignored in a big business like Asda).
I think really, you just have to be content with the fact that you're the bottom rung of the ladder in that business, as shopfloor workers are in most supermarkets.
And at the end of the day, this is Asda. When they sell stuff, I can only expect them to pay stuff.