Teegan Condron, who works 16 hours a week in nightfill, has seen her pay jump $80 a week to around $500. ''It's just made things a little easier,'' she says. ''I’ve got two kids and it helps them out a lot with their extra-curricular activities.'' Both Coles and the Shop, Distributive & Allied Employees Association (SDA) had fought for years to keep the previous deal which paid tens of thousands of workers less than the minimum rates of the award, the basic wages safety net. The old deal slashed - or did not pay at all - penalty rates and other entitlements in exchange for modest increases in hourly pay. In 2016, the full bench of the Fair Work Commission found that deal failed the "better off overall test", the legal test that workers have to be paid more than the award.

More than half the workforce was underpaid, evidence from Coles’ own expert showed. It took nearly another two years of legal wrangling after that Fair Work ruling for a new agreement to take effect. That deal now largely reflects the minimum rates of the award. Nelio Da Silva, who has worked for more than five years at Coles, now gets paid an extra $140 a week under the new deal. These Coles workers have received pay-rises of up to 20 per cent since late April. Credit:Simon Schluter He recently joined the new union, the Retail and Fast Food Workers Union, whose secretary Josh Cullinan exposed the Coles deal in 2015.

''I was always after a union that represented me better,’’ Mr Da Silva said. ''They (SDA) are more conservative and that’s not me.'' The SDA is well known for its conservative social positions whether on abortion, euthanasia and for many years on same sex marriage. It is the largest affiliate of the ALP and has substantial political sway in Labor and the ACTU. An Age and SMH investigation across 2015 and 2016 revealed SDA deals across fast food and retail left more than 250,000 workers paid less than the award and saved business at least an estimated $300 million a year. But despite that the fate of these workers has drawn little or no support from the broader union movement, even as unions have campaigned against penalty rate cuts, wage theft and flat wages.

Ms Ramnac had been suspicious of the SDA after her manager at McDonald’s pushed hard for her to join. ''When I went to McDonald’s they really pushed for the SDA, obviously I joined because I was a vulnerable young worker,'' she says. ''Soon I realised, on my own terms, they weren’t doing much. When you’re not accountable, not transparent, I can’t trust you.'' The RAFFWU's Josh Cullinan said his union was pushing to replace sub-standard wages deals involving the SDA across fast food and retail. The next target was Woolworths, where bargaining is under way. ''Our action at Coles has returned those minimum conditions, we are now fighting for this everywhere else that has a rotten SDA deal.''

Most workers in fast and food and retail on SDA deals had been unaware they had been underpaid as it requires detailed analysis comparing complex enterprise agreements with the award. Josh Cullinan, the union official who exposed the dodgy deal between Coles and the SDA union. Credit:Penny Stephens The Fair Work Commission, for many years, had approved the SDA agreements with big retail and fast food, largely relying on statutory declarations from both parties. But since the Coles wages scandal was exposed by The Age in 2015 that has changed with far more independent analysis by the tribunal. The SDA, through public relations firm Essential Media Communications, did not directly answer questions, but said it ''has always bargained in the best interests of workers within the industrial relations framework at the time''.

''The previous Coles agreement maintained a structure which shifted some of the value of weekend penalty rates into higher base rates of pay, enhanced leave entitlements and working conditions.'' Do you know more? Contact us securely via Journotips Follow Ben Schneiders on Facebook