With union reps like this, pity the Coles staff

It wasn’t really a surprise the Fair Work Commission had to withdraw support for the Coles enterprise agreement. It never passed the better-off-­overall test in the first place, a test in the legislation to ensure workers are not disadvantaged by taking an agreement.

But the approach of the FWC has always been that if an agreement is signed by a union, it is ­simply waved through without any serious analysis. Non-union agreements, by contrast, are subject to exhaustive scrutiny.

The trade union — in this case the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association, which claims to be the biggest union in Australia — will tell us the vast majority of workers voted to ­accept the deal. Well, that is of the workers who voted; most of the workers dudded by the agreement didn’t bother to vote.

For Coles, the agreement was a dream come true: pay slightly higher base rates and avoid penalty rates on Saturday and a much lower one on Sunday compared with the Retail Industry Award. For a business in which weekend trade is very significant, this is an ideal arrangement.

Add $5 million-odd it receives a year from the SDA for processing union membership dues and what’s not to love?

Woolies has a similar agreement, but the SDA has been careful not to offer an equivalent deal to smaller supermarket players.

For the SDA, the Coles (and Woolies) deal was also a dream come true. Union officials could attend employee induction sessions, the company handed out union application forms and the company deducted union dues from workers’ pay. The SDA should really be called the Coles (and Woolies) Staff Association.

As a bonus, the sole superannuation fund nominated in the agreement is REST, the union-­affiliated industry super fund whose union trustees are dominated by SDA officials. Coles supermarket workers are given no choice about which super­annuation fund to join.

But it’s not only the Coles deal that duds some workers; it is also REST. Unless workers opt out of the attached insurance arrangements, premiums are deducted automatically from the workers’ super accounts, even though there is no payout in the event of death or total disability unless the account contains at least $3000.

Students working weekends have accounts way below this figure. They are paying for nothing, yet the REST trustees allow this arrangement to continue. After a few years of working for Coles, these young people have precious little in their super ­accounts after fees, charges and unwanted ­insurance. I guess that’s what happens when the union stands up for workers’ rights.

It is the Shorten approach to industrial relations: what’s the problem if some workers are made worse off, think of the bigger picture, think of the benefits for the union. This was the Cleanevent scenario and the Chiquita Mushrooms scenario. It’s how the industrial relations club works. And the FWC is part of the club.

Mind you, the decision does provide a challenge for the government. The Coles deal was one way around the crippling effect of penalty rates set for another time, when weekend work was to be discouraged. Just don’t expect Malcolm Turnbull to demonstrate any courage on, let alone ­interest in, the topic. All that stuff about standing up for small business? It’s basically words.