Australia’s Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association (SDA) has filed a lawsuit against the local McDonald's unit for allegedly asking workers to do unpaid overtime.

SDA claimed that the restaurant chain has been asking existing and former employees to work 30 minutes before the start of their rostered shifts or "pre-shift check", and after their rostered shift ends to hand over tasks.

The class action filed in South Australia's Federal Court claims that 25,000 managers and supervisors working at 1,000 McDonald's restaurants across the country were not paid for this extra work for more than six years.

All shift supervisors, department managers, assistant restaurant managers and restaurant managers who were asked to do extra work without overtime pay are included in the SDA’s latest class action.

Workers employed in any of these positions between December 2017 and December 2023 at any McDonald’s in Australia will automatically be registered as part of the class action.

“It was the minimum expectation that we arrived 30 minutes early to every shift as a manager and completed pre-shift checklists which also included a post-shift section as well - so every single shift it was non-negotiable,” McDonald's former shift supervisor and department manager Mikayla Martin-Coats told Sky News Australia.

The union for workers in retail, warehousing and fast food is asking for A$100m ($66.13m) backpay from McDonald's Australia.

The SDA is also asking the court to penalise McDonald’s Australia and its operators for this unlawful practice.

In a report, Reuters cited SDA National Secretary Gerard Dwyer as saying: “McDonald's is operating on a broken business model. The fast-food chain should not be requiring managers to work up to an additional one hour per shift without pay.”

Meanwhile, McDonald's told Reuters in a statement: “McDonald's will respond to the claims in due course. The company takes its obligations under all applicable employment laws very seriously.”