Some Coles workers say an offer from the supermarket giant of in-store gift cards if they vote to accept a new enterprise agreement is “insulting”, and the agreement doesn’t give them a meaningful pay rise despite the company’s increased profits.
One employee said she felt “disrespected” by the offer, which comes at a time when some staff say they are skipping meals and shopping at other supermarkets because they can’t afford food from their own workplace.
Australia’s second-largest supermarket chain this week delivered a proposed new enterprise agreement to staff that would determine their wages and workplace conditions for four years. Workers are scheduled to vote on the agreement from Monday.
Coles has negotiated separately with the SDA retail and warehouse union and the Retail and Fast Food Workers Union (RAFFWU) in recent months.
The SDA has hailed the proposed agreement as improving wages and allowances, enabling fairer rostering and including better leave provisions.
But the RAFFWU has decried it as undermining safety conditions, introducing split shifts and tying any pay rise only to Fair Work’s annual wage review, which increases award minimums. Under the agreement, a level one Coles worker would earn $25.27 per hour, just 54 cents above the award base rate.
The agreement also includes an offer of a Coles gift card – to the value of $600 for a full-time staff member, $250 for a part timer or $150 for a casual – if the employee is working for the company when the agreement is voted in, and is still working for the company when the agreement is approved by the Fair Work Commission. Approximately 85% of Coles staff are part-time or casual employees.
A new agreement has long been delayed: the previous one expired in 2020, with Coles only forced back to the bargaining table after the Labor government’s flagship industrial relations laws came into effect at the end of 2022.
“It’s insulting,” said Taylor Dempsey, 27, a part-time Coles worker in Brisbane. “Team members [are] already so close to what I would call a modern poverty situation.”
‘That’s no way to live’
Dempsey said he has needed the assistance of charities to put food on the table, despite working close to full time hours for the company.
“And if I’m in that situation there’s an issue, because I have significantly more hours than other team members would,” Dempsey said.
“We’ve got team members that are skipping meals, eating food that’s provided by the company in the tea room – bananas, apples, Coles Ultimate brand cookies – because they can’t afford it. They’re putting $10 at a time in their car for fuel and just barely get to work and back. That’s no way to live.”
Dempsey said he would be urging other Coles workers to vote against the agreement and push for a better deal.
Coles posted a 4.8% rise in annual profit to $1.1bn last financial year and has been accused of inflationary profiteering amid the cost-of-living crisis. The company has defended its pricing and said it was working hard to keep goods affordable.
The major supermarkets are currently facing a federal Senate inquiry into how they set prices and use their market power when dealing with suppliers.
Shona*, a part-time Coles employee in regional New South Wales, said she usually shops at one of Coles’ competitors because she can’t afford to shop at her own workplace.
“I work there, but where I shop is cheaper, even with the 5% [Coles staff] discount,” Shona said.
Shona, who receives a partial jobseeker payment, said she felt “disrespected” by the gift card offer.
“It’s not even cash. I can’t even top up my rent or take it to the dentist.”
Josh Cullinan, secretary of the RAFFWU, said the gift card offer was a “deliberate effort … to induce a [yes] vote by offering poor people food, and to try and attract their own staff to come back to shop for them again because they can’t afford to shop for them now”.
The campaign has highlighted the rising tensions between the SDA, the powerful and conservative legacy union of the retail sector, and the fledgling but rapidly growing RAFFWU. The latter has been trying to get Coles to bargain on a new agreement since 2020, including taking a petition to the Fair Work Commission.
Since bargaining opened, the RAFFWU has been campaigning for a minimum wage of $29 an hour, the abolition of junior rates (which still apply to Coles workers for two years after they turn 18), as well as better job security and safer workplaces. Its members took rolling strike action in stores across the country in the lead-up to Christmas. SDA members did not take industrial action.
Gerard Dwyer, the SDA’s national secretary, said the union’s bargaining positions had been endorsed by its members. He said the agreement contained “significant benefits” and the SDA recommended it be voted in next week.
“The agreement includes a number of improvements for Coles employees, such as increased minimum hours for part timers, access to additional hours, superannuation on paid and unpaid parental leave (a priority issue for SDA members), increased compassionate leave and annual leave for part-timers to be based on actual hours worked,” Dwyer said.
“The sign-on bonus [gift card] would be welcome money in the pocket for workers confronting significant cost of living pressures.”
A Coles spokesperson said the proposed agreement provided “several benefits” for staff including “greater flexibility”, “maintaining above-award base rates of pay … a mechanism for future wage rate increases” and “enhanced” leave entitlements.
“We are pleased to be able to deliver all of this as part of the proposed enterprise agreement,” the spokesperson said.
“We have been working hard to listen to our team members and their bargaining representatives to provide a proposed enterprise agreement that provides benefits for our team members and which supports our operations.”
The RAFFWU said it would continue fighting to improve employment conditions through the Fair Work Commission if the agreement was voted up.
* Name has been changed
