Just two weeks after Ben Carroll rolled Jacinta Allan to become the new Labor Premier of Victoria, he was rewarding his factional backers in the Labor Right. Carroll, who joined the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association (SDA) as a teen, now relies on this conservative juggernaut as his power base. He introduced the Associations Incorporation Reform Amendment Bill 2026, claiming his goal is “to stop workers being scammed.” The real target is the militant Retail and Fast Food Workers Union (RAFFWU).
Workers with zero opportunity to change the tightly controlled SDA through elections or rank-and-file organising formed the grassroots union in 2016. For a decade, RAFFWU has built workers’ power on the job and challenged the SDA’s antiquated family values views and cozy relationship with the bosses. Its success is a threat to Carroll and his faction. The modus operandi of the SDA is to use membership growth to increase its strength within the Labor Party. Some workers are enrolled in the SDA during induction by their employer. Rather than using union density to deliver for workers, the SDA uses its numbers to pre-select socially conservatives candidates and push an agenda opposing women’s independence, reproductive justice and bodily autonomy.
Under Carroll’s plan, Consumer Affairs Victoria will be given sweeping powers to shut down unions that are registered as incorporated associations. RAFFWU is registered this way. It is blocked from gaining status under the Registered Organisations Act, which enshrines a monopoly for established organisations, such as the SDA.
RAFFWU has gone from strength to strength, challenging both ALP domination in the union movement and SDA collusion with the huge retail and fast food chains. It has organised workplaces and led strikes. RAFFWU terminated anti-worker enterprise agreements which made almost two-thirds of workers paid less than the award at Woolworths, McDonalds and Dominos under clauses that stripped weekend penalty rates. By exposing rest break and wage theft, it has won billions of dollars back for workers. In sharp contrast to the SDA, RAFFWU stands for First Nations sovereignty, fights for climate justice and campaigns for domestic violence and gender affirmation leave. It has a vibrant queer caucus. The union’s membership has swelled, attracting thousands of young workers.
When Carroll’s bill was announced, the Victorian Trades Hall Council had just one thing to say: “Good.” Its concern is conservative organisations operating under the umbrella of the Red Union Support Hub. This hub was founded by a bunch of people with impeccable union bashing credentials. Chief among them is Graeme Haycroft, an anti-union warrior with links to the Queensland Liberal National Party. Operating in industries including nursing, teaching and transport, they claim to offer workers better unions without politics. But they are anything but! The hub has links to right-wing populist figures and the COVID era anti-vaccination movement.
We are implacably opposed to all organisations established under the Red Union Support Hub and just as passionately against Ben Carroll’s underhand bill. The solution to anti-worker fakers is not legislation to shut them down. It is getting the word out to expose the real agenda of these outfits and rebuilding a class-struggle union movement as a magnet for workers eager to fight in their collective interests. Workers don’t need more regulation about who we can organise with and how. We need to dismantle the unfair Fair Work Act, fight for democratic unions and build workers’ power. We agree with RAFFWU, which says, “All trade unionists worth their salt should be outraged by this cynical attack on all workers rights to freely organise.”
