The families of teenage workers at fast food and retail outlets have accused one of Australia’s largest unions of “predatory” recruitment tactics.
Guardian Australia has spoken with several young workers and families who feel their teenagers were pressured to join the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees’ Association (SDA) in their first days on the job, including a 14-year-old who was recruited in mid-2024 on her first shift at Hungry Jack’s.
Sarah* described the encounter as “unsettling”. Mid-shift, her manager said there was someone there to speak with her. At first she assumed the SDA organiser was a fellow employee – he already knew so much about her.
One-on-one at a table, he presented her with a membership form and instructed her to sign. “When I struggled to recall my contact details, he directed me to retrieve them from my phone, guiding me through the form completion process as if it were mandatory,” she said in a statement.
“As a 14-year-old on my first day of employment, I felt vulnerable and ill-equipped to navigate this situation. I was … anxious about making a misstep.”
Her father, Lachlan*, was outraged when she got home, and he called to cancel the membership. “You’ve got a kid who’s nervous as hell, starting their first job … It’s just wrong,” he told Guardian Australia.
Signing up new members is the bread and butter of any union, but former insiders said it is a particular priority for the SDA, which represents a young and highly transitory workforce. The union has historically been known for its close relationship with employers, influence within the right faction of the Labor party and conservative stance on social issues such as abortion.
Maintaining its position as one of the largest unions in the country – despite declining membership across the retail sector – is key to the SDA’s political influence.
Susan* said her 16-year-old daughter, Jess*, left a union induction session when she started work at Kmart in late 2024 with no understanding of what a union was. She thought it would pay her if she was ever sick or injured, so she signed up.
Her mother only realised when Jess’s union dues started to come out of her pay. “They should’ve been allowed to bring that paperwork home,” Susan said, “because they’re not earning bugger-all at that age”.
The national secretary of the SDA, Gerard Dwyer, said the union has measures in place to ensure that workers under the age of 18 “are treated with special care and attention”, including a requirement that a letter be sent to parents outlining that workers can cancel their membership at any time as well as a two-week cooling off period.
Susan told Guardian Australia she never received a letter from the union.
Dwyer said the union could not comment on experiences like Sarah and Jess’s without first-hand knowledge. “Young workers face particular challenges at work, which is why the SDA takes educating young people about workplace rights and union membership very seriously,” he said.
“Any complaints, and they are few and far between, are treated systematically and seriously by the SDA.”
Lachlan, said he got a text from the union around the time his daughter Sarah was signed up, but he did not believe that was sufficient. Lachlan is a union member himself, but in his view the SDA organiser’s manner left no room for his daughter to say no.
He said it was not the right approach for a 14-year-old first-time worker: “I support the unions, but I don’t support predatory tactics.”
He said Sarah is now a member of the Retail and Fast Food Workers Union (RAFFWU) – an upstart union that formed in 2016 in opposition to the SDA.
A spokesperson for Hungry Jack’s said the company “has an agreement with the SDA”.
“The company supports freedom of association.”
The elephant in the room
Georgia* was an organiser who left her job at the SDA after just a couple of months. Among other concerns, she was disturbed by what she claims was an emphasis on recruitment, especially of young people.
She remembered taking aside a new worker at KFC who was only about 15 or 16. “You get these two uniformed people, [saying] come on round the back, outside in the food court and we’re gonna have a chat … it’s just such an intimidating process,” she said.
“How could you reasonably be expected to understand what’s happening or not feel pressured?”
Georgia, along with several other former SDA organisers, confirmed the SDA has recruitment targets for its organisers. While this is not necessarily unusual, she said she felt there was more priority given to signing up new members than helping existing ones.
“The drive for members, members, members, members – it’s from everyone,” she said.
Luca*, another former SDA organiser, said the target at his branch was about 15 sign-up “cards” per week. He never saw anything deceptive about the sign-up process and said he was told to contact the parents of those who signed up who were under the age of 18, but said the emphasis on recruitment was “intense”.
“The recruitment target is always the elephant in the room,” he said. “It’s not why anyone works for a union, but it ends up being the driving force just by the nature of the system.”
after newsletter promotion
“Everyone was honest, hard-working and believed what they were doing,” Luca said of his time at the SDA. “[But] leadership, they were in their own world. They’re always going to be the ones focused on hitting the targets.”
Accusations that the SDA prioritises its relationship with employers in order to maintain access to new workers at the expense of conditions have dogged the union, which remains highly influential within the Labor party.
In the mid-2010s, a series of reports in the Age detailed how part-time workers at McDonald’s, Coles and other retail employers were being underpaid due to deals negotiated by the union, leading to accusations of a “cosy” relationship between the SDA and employers. “[The SDA] has always bargained in the best interests of workers within the industrial relations framework at the time,” the union said at the time.
A number of SDA-brokered deals between workers and employers came under scrutiny at the time. Its 2015 deal with Coles, for example, had to be remedied after the Fair Work Commission decided it failed the “Better-Off Overall Test” (BOOT) because a cut in penalty rates had left a substantial number of workers worse off.
Andrew Stewart, a Queensland University of Technology professor of work and regulation, was a strong critic of the SDA for some of its earlier “sweetheart” deals but said he has seen its strategy change.
“We’ve seen much greater willingness to not only push for genuinely better agreements at the big retailers but [also] the willingness to pick a fight,” he said, pointing to its current stoush with McDonald’s to extend collective bargaining.
Dwyer said the SDA’s campaigns to ensure that supervisors have “working with children” checks and that workers aged between 18 and 20 receive adult wages rather than junior rates were “practical steps to improve the welfare and wellbeing of young workers”.
The tap of access
Australia’s largest two supermarkets, recently named as among the most profitable in the world, continue to provide a significant part of the SDA’s membership base – but negotiations over worker compensation are increasingly bitter.
James*, a former SDA official, told Guardian Australia that Woolworths retail stores share with the union a list of new hires by employee number, team and store.
A Woolworths spokesperson confirmed: “In the case of our retail team members, there are provisions set out in the [enterprise agreement] that allow unions access to new starters on their first shift.”
Guardian analysis in December found that gross operating profits in the retail sector had increased by more than six times since 2001, according to ABS data. Meanwhile, retail wages had risen by less than half as much.
Coles and Woolworths both struck SDA-brokered enterprise agreements in 2024 with store workers. The latter deal locked in base wages of about 40 cents an hour above the minimum award, which is now $25.65.
In a case currently before the federal court, RAFFWU is arguing the 2024 Woolworths deal ought to be overturned. The agreement was approved with the Fair Work Commission, over objections from RAFFWU and the Australasian Meat Industry Employees’ Union but with SDA support.
RAFFWU said the FWC erred in its decision-making because the deal failed to pass the BOOT and because there were failures to complete a valid ballot process and ensure the agreement had been genuinely agreed.
Woolworths denies these claims. It argued in its submission to court that RAFFWU’s argument about the BOOT was “untenable” and the RAFFWU’s application should be dismissed.
Close arrangements between an employer and a union create risks, critics say. Because they control the tap of access to new workers, employers could also one day turn it off. A previous sign-up form for the SDA’s Victorian branch, seen by Guardian Australia, explicitly said in orange and white at the top: “Woolworths encourages its employees to become members of the SDA”.
Young workers say workplace organising is vital – but needs to be done in a more consultative way.
Serena* was brought into a group SDA induction session when she was 17 and just about to start work at Kmart in March 2023. She said she filled out a card on the understanding she would receive more information to consider, when it was actually a sign-up form. She considered it “sneaky practices”.
Lucy*, then 16, described being signed up in the same way in an induction session when starting at Woolworths mid-last year. “I also felt tricked,” she said. She says her parents cannot recall any contact from the SDA.
Unions are “absolutely essential for workers,” Serena said. “But I just think that the SDA specifically … it’s starting to feel less like a union and more just like a … union facade.”
* Names have been changed to protect privacy.
