At RAFFWU we are often contacted by workers who have questions about the SDA. The SDA, known colloquially as the “Shoppies”, is the Shop, Distributive & Allied Employees Association. It is one of Australia’s most powerful and most conservative unions.
Workers ask us why the SDA is motivated to undercut their wages and conditions, or why SDA officials side with store management on workplace issues.
Many workers in the retail and fast food industries join RAFFWU who were previously members of the SDA, or whose only prior encounter with union officials was via the SDA.
Workers are rightly confused and upset that an organisation like the SDA, which purports to represent workers’ rights and interests, instead acts to diminish them.
The SDA is not on your side
The SDA does not act with workers’ interests in mind.
It is a right-wing union, run by conservative Catholics, and affiliated with the Australian Labor Party (ALP). It has long been regarded by bosses as a “friendly” union – that is, a union that will not agitate or organise for its members to take industrial action of any kind.
Even worse, the SDA actively colludes in making workplace agreements that have undermined wages and conditions, stripping penalty rates and job security, and costing some of Australia’s lowest-paid workers billions of dollars in stolen wages over decades.
Big companies like Woolworths, Coles, Kmart, Hungry Jack’s and KFC are happy to recruit their employees for the SDA, often on the first day of work, when employees may know little to nothing about their workplace rights.
In 2015, investigative journalists at Fairfax wrote about the fact that the SDA was paying employers like Coles and Woolworths millions of dollars every year in “commissions”, in return for the employers deducting SDA fees from members’ pay. In 2025, The Guardian exposed SDA was tricking and coercing children into ‘joining’ SDA with the help of major employers.
If you feel that you have been coerced into joining the SDA, contact RAFFWU.
You are not obliged to join the SDA and it is illegal for anyone to knowingly misrepresent your right to join the union of your choice.
Click on the dropdown box below for instructions on how to resign your SDA membership.
Not Better Off, Overall
The enterprise agreements struck by the SDA and their corporate friends have left tens of thousands of retail and fast food workers out of pocket.
Workers have seen substantial reductions to their workplace wages and conditions, including the removal of evening and weekend penalty rates, the removal of paid rest breaks for workers rostered onto 4-hour shifts and the reduction of pay loading for casuals.
The Fair Work Commission applies a test called the Better Off Overall Test (BOOT) to each agreement an employer applies to have approved.
This test is specifically to ensure that every employee and every prospective employee is better off overall under the agreement than the Award.
In 2015, Coles trolley operator Duncan Hart went to the Fair Work Commission to argue that the enterprise agreement struck between Coles and the SDA did not meet the BOOT.
Josh Cullinan, who would become RAFFWU’s founding Secretary, provided analysis to the Fair Work Commission, in his capacity as a private researcher, which demonstrated that the Coles deal left 70,000 Coles workers worse off than they would have been under the Award.
In other words, the Coles deal failed the BOOT, and the SDA had done nothing to prevent this.
In a landmark decision, the Fair Work Commission ruled in favour of Duncan Hart, and the Coles EBA was terminated.
This case lead to the founding of RAFFWU, and opened the way for RAFFWU members to terminate rotten enterprise deals at workplaces including Domino’s, Woolworths and McDonald’s.
You can read more about the Coles case and the founding of RAFFWU at our History of RAFFWU page.
Anti-worker, anti-progress
The SDA’s motivation is to maintain and expand its membership base, and so pursue a conservative Catholic agenda via its factional interests in the ALP.
The structure of the ALP means that its affiliated unions carry influence proportionate to their membership size in the formulation of ALP policy and in the selection of ALP election candidates.
Hence those “friendly” recruitment arrangements with big employers: the larger the SDA’s membership base, the more influence it has in the ALP.
Over many decades, the “Shoppies” have supported and endorsed dozens of right-wing ALP politicians at both federal and state levels. The ALP’s positions on social issues, including, for many years, its official opposition to same-sex marriage, stem from the insidious influence of the SDA upon the party.
The SDA has historically opposed same-sex marriage, LGBTQ+ rights, abortion rights, stem cell research and more, without regard to what its members might think or believe. It is a paternalistic union with a stated aim of guiding its members’ “intellectual” and “moral” development.
But the SDA doesn’t have a “moral” leg to stand on, not when it dedicates its considerable power and resources to undermining workers’ rights. Not when it teams up with the bosses to ensure that you get paid less than you should.
Click on the dropdown boxes below to read more about the conservative Catholic history of the SDA, and about the SDA’s stated positions on abortion law and same-sex marriage.
Join RAFFWU
We are your grassroots, member-led union — a union for workers, not bosses.
RAFFWU is the only union fighting to replace the rotten workplace deals struck by the SDA and employers.
Our members have stood up and fought for their real workplace rights: for their penalty rates, job security, workplace safety and dignity. At RAFFWU we also support our members in pursuing their right to domestic violence leave, gender affirmation and transition leave, protection from workplace sexual harassment and more.
Join us today.
