Editorial: Battle of the single work deal

It was unsurprising that both the unions and the employer claimed victory when the supermarket distribution workers' dispute ended. Such is usually the case when high-stakes industrial relations struggles are resolved. Amid all the flannel, however, it was apparent that Progressive Enterprises had staved off the demand for a single nationwide collective agreement. And that this was not, contrary to the National Distribution Union's view, a matter of no significance.

This was never a dispute about rates of pay. At its core was Progressive's understandable determination to ensure that allowances for its distribution workers' labour reflected the disparities (in size, product range, automation and equipment) of its three warehouse sites. This impulse led the Australian company to react to its workers with the same sort of brusqueness that has typified its rocky relationship with suppliers since it took control of Progressive late last year. The 500-plus workers were locked out, the prelude to a month-long tussle.

Progressive's approach was undoubtedly rudimentary. The company's previous owner had offered, but not implemented, the opportunity for collective protection. In changing tack, the new owner, Woolworths Australia, happily took advantage of untested issues of procedure and good faith in employment relations law. It may also have thought the small number of workers, and their lack of muscle in the overall scheme of its supermarket operations, meant resistance would be shortlived. If so, it miscalculated. Unions, both at home and overseas, were quick to recognise an important principle was at stake. As keen as Progressive to place an ideological stake in the ground, they flocked to aid the workers.

The company was always an easy target for disparagement. Its hard line made it more so. The unions pointed to "a Goliath of an Australian company starving its workers to achieve what it wanted". Never, however, did they debate the nub of the dispute: the fact that if collective protection, either through multi-site or multi-employer agreement, is set in stone, employers are bound to the same wages and conditions. No longer could they differentiate on specific site conditions, such as those identified, quite logically, in Progressive's separate agreements, which meant workers in Palmerston North were paid about $1 an hour more than their Auckland counterparts, and about $2 more than Christchurch workers.

Nor could they impose rates that reflected the employment market in different regions. There could be no margin for Palmerston North in recognition of the smaller labour pool there. More than that, however, there could be no reward on the basis of individual enterprise, energy and productivity. The company is tied to a stifling and stunting collectivism.

On that point of principle, Progressive held firm. The formula for settlement is pay parity across the distribution centres within two years. But there is not one collective agreement for all three sites. This is not, as the National Distribution Union contended, a national collective agreement in all but name. Indeed, the workers could face exactly the same situation in three years, when the agreement ends. The unions may lament also that, because legal action has been stopped, the dispute has delivered nothing in terms of clarifying the bargaining parameters of industrial relations law.

In reality, this was not about an Australian company bullying its workforce. It was about the direction of industrial bargaining. To some degree, Progressive's distribution workers were pawns in that power play. In the end, they were entitled to feel in two minds about the outcome.