frogblog

Bunnings workers trying to negotiate a new collective agreement with their Australian employer were apparently offered petrol vouchers and a Monopoly board game to go with their 0% pay offer. The workers have been protesting the pay offer since last week, with workers at the company’s Newtown store becoming the eleventh store to take action when they held a short strike and picket this morning.

Workers who belong to the National Distribution Union and their boss have been negotiating now for 8 months to reach this offer of 0%. I wonder what offer the company had been making at the start of the 8 months?

Luckily for Bunnings, not all its negotiations have been so poorly received. Richard Goyder, CEO of Australian parent company, Wesfarmers, managed to negotiate a 61% pay increase to $6 million per annum. Not bad given 49% of his pay is related to his performance and this year Wesfarmers had a belt tighteningly tough year. Its profit shrunk by over $100 million from the previous year to only make $786.3 million for the year ended 30 June 2007.

I assume the monopoly gift is to give Bunnings’ workers some empathy for the type of lifestyle problems Goyder faces.

The Bunnings collective agreement is now the only national collective retail agreement with minimum wage starting rates and youth rates.

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