The Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association (SDA) is the largest trade union in Australia with more than 230,000 members and branches in every state and one in the Newcastle, Hunter Valley and Central Coast region. The SDA is associated with the right wing of the union movement and the Australian Labor Party. The SDA is known for providing many discount services to members as well as providing normal industrial services.
The SDA has a close relationship with most employers and employer groups which is often attributed as the reason for the lack of militant action by the union. The union has a long history of being part of the socially conservative branch of the labour movement and this is often traced back to the Irish Catholic background of most of the union's leaders.
The current national secretary is Joe de Bruyn who has been at the helm for over a quarter of a century. The stablity of leadership is seen as one of the SDA's main strengths.
In 1908, unions representing retail workers in New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria and South Australia joined together to become the Shop Assistants and Warehouse Employees Federation. Over time, unions in Tasmania, Newcastle and Western Australia became part of the national union.
In 1972, the union changed its name to the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association.
Coverage
The main categories of workers covered by the SDA are retail shop assistants and fast food workers but the SDA also covers:
Reserve and Backdock Employees
Pharmacy
General Distribution and Warehousing
Pharmaceutical Drug Manufacturing and Distribution
Cosmetic Manufacturing and Distribution
Van Sales
Photographic Industry
Modelling and Mannequin
Motor Vehicle Sales
Shoe and Boot Repairing
Hairdressing and Beauty
In addition to this, the SDA covers some other categories of workers when they are connected to a retail or warehousing environment. For example, the SDA does not have coverage of bakers at large factories or a small bakery. These workers include:
Clerical Employees
Butchers
Meat Packers
Bakers
Pastrycooks
Bakery Assistants
Security
Cleaning
Vehicle Repair Services and Retail
Call Centre Workers
Criticism and comment
Relationship with Employers
The SDA is a union largely based on the servicing model as opposed to the organising model.
Unions associated with the Socialist Left criticise the SDA as a "bosses' union" because they claim the union is too close to the management of companies who employ their members. An example of this was an enterprise bargaining agreement that the SDA negotiated with Dominos Pizza which undercut a Federal Award maintained by the Transport Workers Union for pizza delivery drivers.[link]
In March 2006 the SDA also negotiated an Award for McDonalds employees in New South Wales which stripped back their penalty rates on weekends to a level less than the previous Shop Award they were employed under. It also increased the spread of hours with no compensation. [link]
The SDA argues that its relatively positive relationship with employers allows it to negotiate better outcomes for its members than a more confrontational approach because of the reluctance of SDA members to take industrial action. To a certain extent, this reluctance is inherent to the categories of workers who are covered by the SDA - young people and women who are generally in casual employment. There is a relatively high turnover of staff in the retail sectory generally and having a strong relationship with employers is necessary in order to maintain membership levels. The reluctance of employees to take industrial action is also a side effect of the servicing model of trade unionism which means the union is focused more on providing services to its members rather than organising its members to take industrial action against employers.
Leadership
The SDA is sometimes criticised for having an unchanged leadership over the course of many years, for example, Joe de Bruyn and Don Farrell have been in high leadership positions in the SDA for decades.
Teenagers and women dominate membership and this to a large extent explains why leadership change is rare: the executive positions, often held by middle aged men, often go unchallenged because of difficulty for a person not backed by the 'machine' of the union or the ALP to challenge for office. Another reason for the constant leadership is because of the high turnover of membership, a reality because of the retail environment, which makes challenging for union office difficult.
SDA supporters argue that rather than being a negative aspect about the organisation, that the stable leadership is a positive and reflects of the strength of the union.
Social Positions
Some have accused the SDA of taking positions on social issues contrary to many of its members opinions, especially concerning issues like abortion and rights for same sex couples.
The union made a submission in 2005 to the Victorian Law Reform Commission (VLRC) opposing the provision of in vitro fertilisation and other assisted reproductive techonologies to same sex couples [link]. SDA members were never informed of the submission. The socially conservative position of the union have caused some groups of retail workers to boycott the union, including some workers who identify as gay or lesbian.
The SDA has also been criticised has having a disproportionate influence over the Australian Labor Party, influencing party policy towards more socially conservative positions. The SDA argues that it merely has the same amount of influence that any large union would have over the ALP, especially one which identified with the dominant faction within the party.
