New pay deal lifts penalties and pay for supermarket workers

Coles night shift and weekend workers are about to get significant increases in penalty rates.

Coles night shift and weekend workers are about to get significant increases in penalty rates. Picture: AAP

Coles workers will be briefed on a long-awaited pay deal with the supermarket giant this week and will start voting on the plan to boost wages and penalty rates by Valentine’s Day.

Workers will have a fortnight from January 29 to access the new enterprise bargaining agreement which lifts penalty rates on night shifts and weekends, but offers only small increases for everyday workers.

The deal between Coles and the shop assistants’ union will end more than a year of bartering after the Fair Work Commission struck down their 2014 pay agreement for potentially disadvantaging 11,000 lowly paid employees.

Shop Distributive and Allied Employees ­Association secretary Gerard Dwyer said the deal would both protect pay and offer conditions such as defence, natural disaster and domestic violence leave.

“Coles workers told us they wanted to preserve their above- award take home pay and conditions as part of this new enterprise agreement,” he said.

“They wanted to improve penalty rates and lock in pay rises for all employees. I’m pleased to report that this new agreement delivers on all of these priorities.”

The SDA, the biggest affiliate union in the Labor Party, has been under pressure during negotiations due to past deals with the two big supermarkets which included zero or below-award penalty rates.

Permanent Saturday workers are set for penalty-rate increases from zero to 25 per cent and Sunday workers will get a 50 to 95 per cent rise. But casual weekend employees will be offered much smaller increases in penalties.

The new agreement will also see existing Coles workers get a “top-up” payment scheme to protect take-home pay due to the new wages scheme brought in by the Coles-SDA deal.

“If approved, the new agreement also includes a one-off payment of $475 for full-time Coles employees. A pro rata amount will be paid to part-time and casual employees.” Mr Dwyer said.

“Importantly, both groups of workers (existing and new) would continue to receive annual pay rises.”

Coles workers will lose some benefits under the draft agreement such as some casual rostering protections, one less day of carers leave. And 18-to-19 year old employees and apprentices will lose on higher rates.

But Mr Dwyer said this new agreement would offer alternative, locked-in benefits such as additional access to time off on days other than public holidays and flexible rostering for permanent staff..

The Australian approached Coles for comment on the next phase of the deal but it declined to comment.