The largest family restaurant chain Restaurant Brands and the Unite Union are pleased to announce that Collective Agreements for both the Stores and the Contact Centre have been settled and ratified.

Restaurant Brands has over 200 KFC, Starbucks and Pizza Hut stores and a national Pizza contact centre. The company is the largest employer in the restaurant sector with close to 7000 employees nationally.

The new agreements will come into force on 1 April 2008 and will be for two years for the stores and one year for the Contact Centre and provides rate increases between 6.7% and 18%.

Unite National Secretary Matt McCarten welcomed Restaurant Brands’ decision to remove youth rates entirely from the agreements.

“The company foreshadowed this change two years ago when it brought youth rates up to 90% of the adult rate and we congratulate the company in taking this next step to eliminate youth rates entirely,” he said.

“This is a reward for Unite’s three-year “Supersizemypay campaign” both in an industrial and political sense. In addition Restaurant Brands has made significant steps to reward union members who have achieved higher qualifications and who are experienced and longer serving staff.”

Restaurant Brands chief executive Russel Creedy also welcomed the settlement that was achieved in a positive process that reflected the progress in the relationship between the parties over the past two years.

“We have been able to work together constructively over the past two years to overcome the disruption that had occurred with the previous collective agreement negotiations,” he said.

“We are pleased with the positive attitudes that Unite and its delegates brought to the process. While changes to the agreements do bring additional cost, we are happy with the nature of the settlement and look forward to ratification by union members.”

25 March 2008

For further information contact:
Russel Creedy, 0-9-525 8700
Matt McCarten, 0295-684-422