Adjournment Debate

Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees' Association

Mr PISONI (Unley) (16:30): The recent Fair Work Commission ruling that the enterprise bargaining agreement deal between shoppies union members and Coles paid below the legal safety net and failed what is known as the 'better off overall test' comes as no surprise. In stark contrast to Labor's position on fighting to protect penalty rates, the Labor Party says one thing to the electorate while unions who control it deal away low-paid workers' rights to big business—as long as there is something in it for them.

We all know that after being leader of the Labor Party for 17 years, Mike Rann thought he was actually the boss, until he got the tap on the shoulder from two prominent shoppies union members (the member for Playford and Mr Malinauskas, who is now in the other place), both of whom are beneficiaries of the operation that has been set up as the shoppies union in South Australia and across the nation.

This was just one of the many sweetheart deal arrangements put in place by the shoppies union to secure access to new members through big business workplaces such as Coles, Woolworths, McDonald's and Bunnings, who also cooperate by automatically deducting union fees from the wages of kids stacking shelves for the shoppies union coffers.

This failure by the shoppies union to look after the best interests of 75,000 affected workers will also coincide with problems conveyed to me by constituents regarding the superannuation fund controlled by the shoppies union, REST industry super. Big businesses who make their arrangements through the shoppies union channel all their superannuation contributions for employees to REST, along with making contributions to the shoppies union training funds. A quick look at the REST board shows that most members are sponsored into their position by the shoppies union, very much like many of the members of this parliament.

All three alternate board members are also sponsored by the shoppies union, including former national president Joe DeBruyn, who ironically campaigned strongly against WorkChoices, yet was happy to railroad young, low-paid workers into enterprise bargaining agreements that advantaged his union's mutually convenient relationship with large business organisations above the interests of their own workers. I also recall him making the claim that all of his members support his conservative social agendas, including his anti-abortion agenda and his anti-gay marriage agenda, although I am not sure that he has had that conversation with many of the young people who work in the retail sector.

Many South Australians would have had some experience with the shoppies union, either through their own children, or friends and relatives. For example, when my son had a part-time job at McDonald's at the age of 15, he had a three-hour induction session but was then forced to sit through a union induction for half an hour and was intimidated into signing up for the shoppies union. This raises other questions about how legally binding it is for a 15 year old to sign a contract to have contributions taken out of their salary when they are not of age.

I do not know of any other organisation that would not get a parent to countersign a contract like that, or intimidate children into signing an agreement to hand over money in order to continue their jobs at Big W or other organisations that are sponsored or have employees represented by the shoppies union.

Of course McDonald's is no different, and the member for Elder would know exactly the influence of the shoppies union in McDonald's. Constituents have come to me who were working for the member for Elder when she had a McDonald's at Glenelg, and they were forced to clock off before they did their till. Extraordinary allegations were made from those former employees, and we will be pursuing those with the appropriate bodies as time moves on.

Employees of Coles are given no choice about which super fund to join in this cosy IR deal. Their only option is the Retail Employees Superannuation Trust (REST). The deal is delivering cheaper labour through enterprise bargaining agreements with lower penalty rates, and of course is not made available by the shoppies union to small business or smaller supermarkets, just to the big end of town, so it gives the big end of town a very unfair advantage.

For example, penalty rates in McDonald's on a Sunday are 1.5 compared with the 2.5 restaurants have to pay, which are under a different award—a very cosy arrangement indeed. My constituent had a situation of ringing REST to find out why her super had not been transferred to her new super scheme, as she had requested and arranged with appropriate paperwork submitted three months previously. She was informed eventually that the transfer would not take place because super contributions from a former employer had not been made some six years before, which of course is nonsense.

She was surprised at this, not least because REST had not informed her of this contribution shortfall at the time nor that they were now delaying transfer of her super because of this historic shortfall. REST had not bothered to tell my constituent about the hold-up, but they did continue deducting the monthly fees that superannuation funds take to manage that fund while blocking the transfer to her new fund. Remarkably, they could not confirm whether they were pursuing or had ever pursued the missing payments on my constituent's behalf and, if they were not, who was actually responsible for doing so.

This attitude at REST was patronising and dismissive. They were obviously not used to being questioned and used to fobbing off less tenacious fund members. Eventual resolution only occurred after dogged persistence and the threat of involving her local MP (who happened to be me) and the Superannuation Complaints Tribunal. It transpired that her employer had in fact actually made those contributions. The black hole in her account was simply an excuse by REST and a strange tactic to get her off their back. The transfer to her new super fund could now be actioned, and this miraculously happened in just a couple of days. It is an extraordinary story of the inappropriate use of other people's money for the benefit of an elite group in the shoppies union.

My constituent's experience of the shoppies union-run REST super scheme left her feeling that the people who she assumed were looking after her financial interests and the little guy had instead tried to con her and charge her for the privilege, much like the dodgy enterprise bargaining agreements the Fair Work Commission has caught the SDA out on. SDA members are simply the low-paid building blocks for the union's pyramid scheme. There is no doubt that the shoppies union is the pyramid of power here in South Australia, a Ponzi scheme of politics where the broader the base of the pyramid the quicker the chosen few can be pushed up to the pointy end of the pyramid, which is a seat in either the state or the federal parliament, in South Australia or in Canberra.

She passed the experience on to me because of a concern that younger less experienced workers, who make up much of the shoppies union membership, might not have been able to break through this stonewalling at the REST superannuation fund. In the end, the only thing of real value the shoppies union can deliver big business is cheap labour. If they can no longer do that, the big business boys will cease to facilitate the signing-up of new staff members into the shoppies union, as is currently the case, and directing funds into its training scheme and the REST super fund they also manage.

The house will also be interested to know that every single one of those shoppies union members who is intimidated into joining the shoppies union at age 15, 16 or 17, without discussing it with their parents and without their parents' permission, automatically enables the shoppies union to be eligible to count their vote on the floor of the Labor Party convention, which gives them more power to push their mates up to the pointy end—

The SPEAKER: Would the member for Unley address the Chair?

Mr PISONI: —oh, you are there, sir—of the pyramid of power that is the shoppies union here in South Australia.

The SPEAKER: I didn't cramp the member for Unley's style, did I?

Mr PISONI: No, sir.