The unprecedented wage theft at Australia's largest employers, including Coles, Woolworths, Hungry Jack's, KFC and McDonald's, and the "trade union" that helped to facilitate them, should be nothing less than a national scandal.

Every roster examined at these large employers shows a majority of workers being less paid less than they are entitled to under the federal workplace award.

Taken for a ride. Credit:Robert Rough

The scale of this wage theft means roughly 250,000 workers (at least!) are receiving less than the supposed legal minimum – the award "safety net" upon which enterprise agreements are supposed to rest. In monetary terms we are talking hundreds of millions of dollars every year finding its way into the pockets of corporate giants, rather than low-wage workers.

Yet the problem is not new, and not confined to the latest round of enterprise agreements negotiated by the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees' Association (SDA), the retail and fast food union. We're talking about 20-plus years, and billions of dollars lost to workers, thanks to the collaboration of the SDA and employers, since enterprise bargaining replaced centralised wage fixing in the early '90s.