The Retail and Fast Food Workers Union (RAFFWU) is an Australian trade union for workers in the retail and fast food industries.
History
The Retail and Fast Food Workers Union was established in December 2016 as a response to increased dissatisfaction with the existing Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association (SDA). Earlier that year, industrial researcher Josh Cullinan had found that "dozens of SDA-negotiated deals that industrial relations lawyers now suspect would have failed the “better off” test if they’d been properly assessed by Fair Work", with The Sydney Morning Herald reporting "the amounts lost to workers are incalculable, they are certainly in the billions." Josh Cullinan became RAFFWU's inaugural Secretary, having over 15 years' experience with unionism and worker representation, especially in the National Tertiary Education Union.
In May 2020, the Victorian branch of the Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining and Energy Union endorsed the union over the SDA. In 2022, RAFFWU delegate Stephen Bates became the first RAFFWU-affiliated politician after being elected to the House of Representatives.
Industrial action
Coles Supermarkets
Following Josh Cullinan's success with the Hart decision in which the Fair Work Commission rejected the 2014 EBA due to its failure to pass the Better Off Overall Test or "BOOT" that an agreement must meet when compared to the relevant award. With the 2014 agreement rejected, Coles employees were reverted to the 2011 agreement, but with an undertaking by Coles that the 2014 base rate of pay would not be decreased. RAFFWU's first negotiations for a new enterprise agreement began with serving claims on Coles Supermarkets for the return of all General Retail Award minimum rights such as penalty loadings during unsociable hours that were stripped in prior agreements and an understanding that it would not accept any agreement that was inferior to the award.
These negotiations were put to a halt when in May 2017 a self-represented Coles night fill worker, applied to the Fair Work Commission to have the 2011 agreement terminated on the same basis as the 2014 agreement as it was alleged to also contain similar below-award levels of pay. During this commission process Coles revealed that up to 60% of its workforce would be better off under the minimum rates of the award structure than the 2011 agreement, despite this admission, both the SDA and the AWU assisted Coles in its defence of the agreement. The termination was settled in November 2017 with Coles agreeing to fast-track a vote on a newly proposed enterprise agreement including the return of all award penalty rates to be paid between the period of a successful vote and the agreement taking effect. Despite having been underpaid, due to the settlement of the case outside of the Commission, workers would not be entitled to back pay for the period underpaid.
With a ballot held in February 2018, RAFFWU encouraged its members to vote against the agreement. It raised concerns over concessions made by the SDA including that it didn't require back pay for any period prior that was underpaid, that by saving the existing base rate for current employees and paying new employees just 55¢ above the minimum wage would create a two-tiered workforce and throw the security of existing employees into jeopardy as well as locking in future changes and mirroring award penalty rates that were scheduled to lower on 1 July 2018, despite the SDA's public campaign against these cuts to penalty rates by the Fair Work Commission.
On the 26th of February, the vote was successful with an approval rating of 90% despite only 48,000 or just 61% of the Coles workforce turning out to vote. The agreement included a $475 sign-on payment for full-time workers, pro-rated for part-time employees. RAFFWU continued to raise further concerns that the agreement included provisions for "standing consent" for part-time employees to work additional hours and to be paid at the ordinary rate rather than the applicable overtime rate. It also suggested that by incorporating the $1.50 laundry allowance into the hourly rate, that new employees would effectively only be receiving an additional 5¢ per hour on the minimum wage.
Despite these concerns, the agreement was approved in April 2018 by the Fair Work Commission. RAFFWU's Secretary Josh Cullinan commented that "It has taken a long time but we are delighted that workers will start seeing the benefits of our campaign. We believe the agreement should have been better but there is substantial improvement".