More than 130,000 Woolworths employees will have the right to work a four-day payroll following a landmark agreement between the food giant and workers’ unions.
The Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Association backed the proposal that would give workers the option of working their 38-hour week in four 9.5-hour shifts.
The changes will be added to Woolworths’ new enterprise agreement if it is approved by an employee vote in the coming weeks.
Since weekends are the busiest days at the supermarket, employees will be required to work up to four weekend shifts per month.
Woolworths employees will vote to add a four-day workweek option to their new enterprise agreement.
The proposal will affect Woolworths’ 130,000 employees, who will be offered to work their 38-hour week in four 9.5-hour shifts.
“That could be one weekend shift per week, meaning a Saturday or a Sunday, or it could be two weekends working on Saturday and Sunday, and two weekends off,” the SDA NSW secretary said. , Bernie Smith. The Australian.
Bunnings agreed last May to trial a four-day work week for full-time employees, and other smaller organizations and businesses have also experimented with the change.
The news follows the Fair Work Commission’s backing of a new enterprise deal at Coles, which will affect 92,000 workers despite objections from the Retail and Fast Food Workers Union.
The Woolworths and Coles enterprise deals have committed the grocers to giving their employees annual pay rises in line with those put forward by Fair Work’s annual pay review.
The approach has already generated a 23.1 percent pay increase since 2018.
Inflation during that same period rose 19 percent.
The commission agreed with RAFFWU that a provision in Coles’ new enterprise agreement that would allow it to unilaterally change the working hours and days of part-time employees could be damaging.
However, it acknowledged that the agreement would also give part-time employees the qualified right to request an increase in hours, which can only be refused on reasonable business grounds.
Fair Work concluded that the agreement passed the general better conditions test.
“The agreement provides more beneficial employment conditions for employees than those provided for in the agreement, including marginally higher wages,” he said.
The news follows Coles’ victory over unions after the Fair Work Commission backed its new enterprise agreement.
The Fair Work Commission has also been busy challenging claims by employers under the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry that wages rising faster than inflation will “disincentivise”[ise] business negotiation.”
‘Does ACCI have evidence to show that keeping modern award wage growth below average wage growth provides an incentive for enterprise bargaining?’ the commission asked.
The commission also questioned the ACCI’s claim that an expert panel was systematically awarding increases in minimum and modern wages that exceeded the growth of inflation and the wage price index.
Daily Mail Australia has contacted Woolworths for comment.
The four-day work week is a global push to change long-established work schedules, with success already seen in other countries such as Sweden, Spain and Belgium.
Organizations such as Oxfam and Unilever have already trialled the shortened working week in Australia, while audit firm Findex and accounting firm Grant Thornton introduced nine-day fortnights.
