AUSTRALIA | The Australian Council of Trade Union warned that the proposal by Australia’s largest retailers to abolish penalty rates and cut minimum conditions for supermarket employees risked hurting some of the continent’s lowest-paid workers and set a precedent for other employers to do the same.
Coles and Woolworths have joined forces with Kmart and Costco to publicly back the Australian Retailers Association’s application in the Fair Work Commission to scrap overtime, evening and weekend penalty rates, and work breaks and reduce rest times between shifts from 12 hours to 10 hours.
The ARA proposed that any worker earning AUD 53,670 and above on the retail award would lose their penalty rates, overtime, annual leave loading, allowances, breaks and protections around work hours in exchange for a 25 percent increase to buy-out award safeguards.
Woolworth and Coles sought to tear up the rules around working hours that saw them underpay workers by AUD 500 million, citing rostering restrictions as part of the underpayments.
The retail industry made over AUD seven billion in profits as of September 2024.
“Australian Unions call on all political parties to pledge they will protect the penalty rates of working Australians from this type of corporate greed,” said ACTU Assistant Secretary Joseph Mitchell.
“Retail workers risked their health to keep supermarkets open during the pandemic. It’s outrageous for big companies like Coles and Woolworths to demand their undervalued workforce work longer hours with reduced protections and lower wages.”
Mitchell added the supermarkets were arguing for these cuts to pay and conditions under the guise of ‘workplace flexibility’. He said that big businesses everywhere will use this as a precedent to push for lower wages in other industries, especially if the Coalition wins the election and rips open more loopholes.
“No one is safe from wage cuts if this goes through.”
The retail lobby’s proposals attacked the workers’ ability to deal with cost-of-living pressures.
“Not only do these workers have to deal with price gouging from the big retailers like everyone else, but now they are also expected to stand by while the supermarket duopoly pushes to strip away their wages and conditions,” added Mitchell.
“The greed of these giant companies knows no bounds. Unfortunately, this retail plan is part of a broader agenda by big businesses to maximise profits by making their employees’ lives less financially secure.”
