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Secretary’s Report
SECRETARY’S REPORT: JOSH PEAK Putting working people first is our way out of this pandemic
SDA Secretary Josh Peak picture with SDA Member Peter McEwen
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The past 18 months have not been easy.
This year alone, millions of Australians have been plunged into lockdowns. Many of our members have been forced to put on a brave face and put their own health at risk and go to work each day, while many others have been left without a secure job and income. Our hospitals and healthcare system have been pushed to the brink, our supermarkets and distribution centres have experienced neverbefore-seen levels of demands and retail and fast food stores have been forced to adapt and be resilient in the face of lockdowns.
Throughout all of this, the SDA and SDA members have never stopped fighting to keep you safe, to save your jobs and livelihoods and to save lives.
In 2020, we fought to establish JobKeeper - ensuring that those who couldn’t work and had to stay home could stay afloat in the hardest months of this pandemic. We fought for those still at work. Campaigning for months to win paid pandemic leave at all levels, so that we could all do our part to stop the spread and keep our communities safe.
We also fought - and in South Australia continue to fight - to ensure that frontline retail workers are protected from the threat of customer abuse and violence, calling on Governments to declare retail workers essential, declare any assault against them as aggravated and introduce fines for spitting or coughing on workers. Most importantly, we’ve also fought to ensure that your service to your communities is recognised with fair and immediate pay rises both at the Fair Work Commission and the bargaining table. Through outbreaks, lockdowns and donut days, we’ve always put your safety and security first. As we get closer and closer to a return to “normal”, we won’t stop fighting. Recently, we’ve been fighting to ensure all SDA members have priority and equitable access to the recommended vaccines.
With many retail, fast food and DC sites being points of transmission and exposure, SDA members working on the frontline have been at a higher risk of catching and transmitting the virus. The only way that we can avoid lockdowns, save lives and keep our workplaces and communities safe is through higher vaccine uptake and by prioritising essential workers in the process. As part of this push, we’ve called on all employers to provide additional paid vaccination leave to their workers, so no one has to choose between getting paid and getting vaccinated.
Our demands haven’t gone unheard. So far, we’ve seen a handful of companies - including Woolworths Group, Kmart and Target - agree to offer workers paid vaccination leave when they get the jab. But more must be done.
In order to keep everyone safe, we need everyone to get on board. Whether it’s providing paid leave, Governments supporting workers in lockdown or workers getting vaccinated, we need to stand united and do our part to get out of this crisis.
SDA launches national report on work and caring responsibilities
The SDA has released a groundbreaking report exploring the challenges faced by SDA members in managing work and caring responsibilities.
Surveying nearly 6500 SDA members across the country, the “Who cares? A fair share of work and care” Report offers an insight into how our employment laws and community standards have failed to ensure workers can maintain meaningful employment and caring responsibilities.
Our report has found that the insecurity around hours and pay that carers experience is affecting their mental health, constraining their caring options and limiting opportunities for families to spend time together. SDA Assistant Secretary Sonia Romeo says that the amount of unpaid labour that SDA members are expected to do is severely undervalued in our society. “While they’ve been working on the frontline, many of these workers have also had to juggle looking after their kids and elderly family members with unpredictable rosters and hours of work.
“It’s time that we start looking at how we can provide more stable and predictable working conditions to workers who have caring responsibilities,” says Sonia.
Our Findings
SDA members lack genuine choice about their working times and childcare arrangements They require better support structures, including access to childcare services that recognise their needs, to ensure they have meaningful opportunities to shape their working and caring lives.
Industrial relations settings and employer practices limit the choices and opportunities available to SDA members. Rostering is too unpredictable and changes so frequently that important caring responsibilities cannot be adequately met. 10% of survey respondents said they don’t have a regular working day.
The way work is organised exacerbates difficulties Many SDA members cannot access early education for their children and have constrained opportunities to fully participate in other aspects of social and community life. Childcare is expensive, inflexible, and geared towards Monday-Friday daytime hours.
The Path to Reform
The SDA will be using this report to push for changes to the industrial relations system, workplace policies and in childcare to make caring and working easier for SDA members and other Australian workers.
“Our existing childcare system and industrial relations laws are out of line with the demands of the workforce and the needs of workers.
“Too many workers are feeling trapped. They fear that if they turn down a shift, they’ll be out of a job and won’t be able to feed their families or keep the lights on. “It’s a cruel situation and it must be changed to put workers’ back in control of their lives,” says Sonia. The SDA is calling for paid carer’s leave to be provided to all workers, a “Right to Care” to be enforceable and enshrined in law, equal access to paid and unpaid parental leave, the restoration of penalty rates and the expansion of paid personal leave to casual workers.
The SA Liberal Government is refusing to act and declare Christmas Day a public holiday.
This year, Christmas is on a Saturday so the public holiday is being moved to Monday December 27 in South Australia.
This means that if your store opens on Christmas Day, you could be asked to work and not be paid public holiday penalty rates. Premier Steven Marshall has the power to change this and declare both days a public holiday but is refusing to. He can’t continue to push this issue aside and act like it’s not a big deal. If Steven Marshall doesn’t change this, South Australian workers will be the only ones in the country who aren’t receiving public holiday penalty rates on this day. These workers will be $200 worse off at one of the times of the year where money matters most. After everything they’ve been through, robbing essential workers of their right to a day off and public holiday penalty rates isn’t the reward they deserve, it’s a slap in the face. Just as we did last year over Boxing Day, we’re going to fight this. If you give up your Christmas Day to work, you should be paid public holiday penalty rates and we’re going to continue to push the Government and your employers to do the right thing. Let’s send Steven Marshall a clear message: Christmas Day must be declared a public holiday.
Support our campaign by sending Steven Marshall a message at sda.com.au/christmasday
South Australia is the only state where Christmas Day is not a Public Holiday.
SEND STEVEN MARSHALL A MESSAGE:
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Tasmania
SA Government’s trading hours Referendum voted down
The SA Liberal Government’s destructive 24/7 trading hours plan has been stopped in its tracks yet again.
In August, just a matter of months after it was announced, the State Government’s plan to hold a referendum on trading hours at the 2022 State Election was slapped down by SA Parliament.
The referendum was decisively voted down, with the Liberal Party standing as the sole voice in Parliament supporting this harmful deregulation agenda. SDA Secretary Josh Peak says while this is a great outcome for retail workers, it won’t be the end of this debate.
“We know that Rob Lucas will continue to ram through his own ideological desires on trading hours and ignore retail workers’ needs. “No matter what the Government does next, the SDA will keep fighting to ensure you have the right to respect, the right to a fair roster and the right to choose not to work on public holiday,” says Josh. 24/7 trading is bad for workers, bad for business and bad for SA
In another hit to the Government’s destructive plan, in August, Business SA - the peak business body in South Australia - announced that it no longer supports 24/7 trading in South Australia. Business SA now supports allowing shops to open from 9am on Sunday, close at 6pm on Saturday, as well as regular trading on Boxing Day. “While we don’t agree with all aspects of their position, this is still a huge win for common sense and a massive blow to the Government’s agenda. “Business SA’s new position proves what the SDA, workers and small businesses have been saying all along: 24/7 trade is out of line with the best interests of South Australia,” says Josh.
– JOSH PEAK, SDA SECRETARY
SCAN ME TO JOIN OUR CAMPAIGN TO STOP LONGER TRADING HOURS:
Eudunda Farmers Limited accused of wage theft of more than $1 million in regional SA as union launches legal action
ABC News, Tuesday 14 September 2021
SDA pursues $1 million in backpay for Eudunda Farmers Ltd workers
The SDA has lodged a groundbreaking claim in the Federal Court against Eudunda Farmers Ltd for allegedly underpaying workers over $1 million dollars and breaching a range of workplace entitlements.
Being paid for all time you work, at the correct pay rate and for all allowances isn’t optional - it’s the law.
The SDA has uncovered that at Eudunda Farmers, which operates IGAs and Foodlands across 20 regional towns in South Australia, this basic principle hasn’t been followed.
We’ve lodged a claim in the Federal Court on behalf of 64 workers so far to pursue backpay for workers and ask the court to penalise the company for these breaches. From countless conversations with workers and by sorting through pay slip after pay slip, we’ve uncovered that workers across these regional supermarkets appear to have been misclassified, massively underpaid, denied overtime pay and allowances amongst other breaches of the Retail Award.
The extent of these breaches is far-reaching. We’ve uncovered instances of workers being employed as casuals for over 30 years, being underpaid up to $60,000 in wages and being expected to work more than 38 hours a week without overtime.
This is blatant exploitation and wage theft at its finest.
This should not be happening in this country or in this day and age. From Barmera to Port Augusta, there are potentially hundreds of workers who have had the wool pulled over their eyes and money that is rightfully theirs stolen out of their pockets.
Simply backpaying workers is not enough. These underpayments are a loss not only to the affected workers, but to their communities and to these regional towns.
Wage theft rips money out of regional workers’ pockets and out of the regional communities and it must be stopped.
Along with securing backpay for all workers, we want to send a clear message to all businesses - ripping off workers is not a viable business model and ignoring the law and these basic entitlements will not be tolerated.
IF YOU WORK AT A EUDUNDA FARMERS STORE, IT’S NOT TOO LATE TO GET INVOLVED AND JOIN OUR LEGAL ACTION.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. If you think you’ve been underpaid or denied your entitlements at work, visit www.eudundatheft.com.au so we can pursue backpay for you
REGISTER TO BE PART OF OUR LEGAL ACTION:
Union win! Wage increase for essential workers
After an unnecessary 2 month delay, in September millions of retail workers across the country received a 2.5% pay rise - thanks to the SDA and SDA members.
In June, the Fair Work Commission announced a 2.5% increase to the minimum wage, however it decided that this increase would be delayed from 1 July to 1 September for the retail industry. SDA Secretary Josh Peak says this delay didn’t make any sense.
“Major retailers and supermarket chains have been making record profits during the pandemic, there’s no reason their employees who have been working on the frontline, shouldn’t also reap the benefits of this.
“The past 18 months haven’t been easy on retail workers. They’ve had to risk their health and safety, put up with panic buying and rushes on the shops and had barely any certainty or security around their hours or paychecks.
“The best way to get our economy back on track is to give frontline workers a pay rise,” says Josh. Since June, the SDA has been calling on major employers to pay this 2.5% increase from July and saw Woolworths Group, EG Fuel and David Jones agree to this.
This pay rise wouldn’t have been possible without SDA members.
Over 9000 workers supported our campaign to win real pay rises for retail, fast food and warehousing workers in 2021.
While employer lobby groups argued for a low or zero percent wage increase this year, SDA members stood up and made sure the Fair Work Commission and employers heard our demands loud and clear: essential workers deserve a real pay rise. It’s only by standing together that we can continue to fight for fair wages and outcomes for working people.
COMPANIES THAT RECEIVED A PAY RISE IN SEPTEMBER
» Coles » Eudunda Farmers » Betts » BBQs Galore » Cheap As Chips » Drakes » Just Group » Myer » The Reject Shops » Best And Less » Ikea » Kmart » Harris Scarfe » Freedom
FIND OUT MORE ABOUT OUR ESSENTIAL PAY RISE CAMPAIGN
400+ workers demand backpay over denial of rest breaks at McDonald’s
The SDA’s campaign to restore paid breaks and win backpay for impacted workers is continuing to grow.
As of September 2021, the SDA has lodged two new claims in the Federal Court on behalf of workers at sites in Broken Hill, Victor Harbor and Aldinga Beach. The SDA has now lodged claims on behalf of over 400 workers against five franchisees, covering 17 sites across South Australia and Broken Hill.
At the Federal Court, the SDA will be seeking thousands in compensation for workers who did not get the breaks they were legally entitled to. We’re also asking the Court to award penalties against the franchisees for breaching the McDonald’s Agreement and the Fast Food Award. With over 400 workers coming forward and thousands more reaching out, SDA Secretary Josh Peak says there’s no doubt that this issue exists - or existed - in other McDonald’s sites across the country. “It’s clear this is not a matter of a few rogue franchisees doing t he wrong thing - this issue is systemic and widespread across McDonald’s sites.
“Paid drink breaks are a right and all McDonald’s workers must receive them when they fall due. “McDonald’s stores are incredibly busy and hot places to work, to think that thousands of workers have been denied the right to a rest break is disgusting.
“The fish rots from the head and McDonald’s needs to take responsibility and backpay these workers,” says Josh.
GET INVOLVED IN THE SDA’S LEGAL ACTION
Thousands of past and present workers have reached out to the SDA to discuss their concerns.
The SDA is currently taking action on behalf of current and former workers at Aldinga Beach, Arndale, Broken Hill, Cross Roads, Croydon, Felixstow, Frewville, Fulham Gardens, Harbour Town, Murray Bridge, Mt Barker, Rundle Mall East, Port Adelaide, Trinity Gardens, Victor Harbor, West Lakes and Woodville.
The SDA is continuing to gather evidence at other McDonald’s sites across the country to lodge legal action. If you’ve worked at McDonald’s in the past 6 years at any site and believe you didn’t receive the correct breaks, get in touch with the SDA ASAP.
SCAN ME
to complete the SDA’s confidential breaks survey and start your involvement:
