New Coles pay deal finally approved

Coles has finally secured approval of a new pay deal for its 77,000 employees.

Coles has finally secured approval of a new pay deal, but not before the Fair Work Commission required the supermarket giant to give written undertakings that employees were better off than the legal minimum safety net.

Commission deputy president Val Gostencnik yesterday approved the two-year agreement for Coles’s 77,000 employees after the company gave undertakings to ensure the deal passed the Fair Work Act’s better-off-overall test.

The proposed deal is estimated to cost Coles up to $10 million as it will now pay award-level penalty rates to permanent weekend and late-night employees and give a one-off $475 payment to full-time employees in lieu of back pay. Weekday workers will receive only small pay rises, equal to half the annual minimum wage increase.

Coles had reverted to a 2011 deal after the commission quashed a 2014 agreement. Union officials conceded the 2014 deal potentially would have disadvantaged more than 11,000 Coles workers.

Coles said the agreement, approved by 90 per cent of staff who took part in a ballot in February, ensured workers were “paid more than the award at all times”.

The commission raised a series of concerns about the agreement. It said the proposed deal expressed an employee’s entitlement to personal leave in hours rather than days, potentially contravening the law which said an employee was entitled to 10 days of personal leave each year.

The commission was also concerned supported wage system employees, not entitled to the one-off cash payment, might not be better off overall.

EWIN HANNAN