McDonald’s hit with multi-employer bargaining push   

Financial Review
Aug 6, 2024

The retail union is using Labor’s new multi-employer bargaining laws to force McDonald’s back to the negotiating table for its first collective agreement in more than a decade.

The Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Association launched an application on Monday for the Fair Work Commission to order the fast-food giant to negotiate a deal for more than 5000 workers across 14 franchisees in South Australia, which could let it rope in stores around the country.


McDonald’s is the largest employer group to rely on the award minimum.

McDonald’s, which employs more than 100,000 staff through its franchisees and corporate stores, abandoned enterprise bargaining in 2019 and remains the largest employer group to rely solely on the award minimum.

SDA South Australian secretary Josh Peak said that by not having a collective agreement, McDonald’s was refusing to give its workers any say on their pay and conditions.

“McDonald’s is the most profitable fast-food business in the world, and it’s not fair that their workers are only receiving the bare minimum,” he said.



“This application is the first step towards securing better pay and conditions for all Maccas workers. It’s time for McDonald’s to listen to its workers and negotiate with the union.”   

The SDA is invoking the Albanese government’s recently introduced supported bargaining stream for multi-employer agreements, which is for low-paid workers who do not have access to enterprise bargaining.

The stream allows the Fair Work Commission to assist the parties in reaching an agreement, including by forcing third parties, which may include franchisors, to the table.

Approval tests ‘too complex’
The SDA’s application is the first to use the supported bargaining stream for the private sector. Previous applications targeted government-funded employers such as childcare centres or disability service providers.

Once a deal is made, the SDA can unilaterally apply to vary the agreement to extend its pay and conditions to other stores and employees if a majority of staff want to be covered.

McDonald’s last agreement was made in 2013 and expired in 2017. It declined to pursue a new agreement with the SDA in 2019 after complaining that the approval tests were too complex and uncertain.

Despite Labor amending the legislation to make the tests simpler in 2022, McDonald’s has not sought to negotiate a new deal.

The SDA’s application said it had bargained with McDonald’s stores in South Australia since 1995 but that the different franchisees meant a conventional single-employer deal was “unrealistic, unduly burdensome and artificial”.

Granting its application would empower a cohort of young workers “who by dent of their age and industry turnover are characterised by a lack of resources and industrial experience”, the union said.

McDonald’s declined to comment.

The SDA advised McDonald’s about its desire for a new deal at the start of July, but the fast-food giant told the union it would not respond until the end of August.

The case comes as McDonald’s is also facing a $100 million class action over alleged underpayments across its stores. It is also caught up in a landmark SDA case to scrap the fast-food award’s junior rates for staff aged 18 to 21.

I personally believe that they have both the right to enterprise bargain and that they deserve a payrise.