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Workers at the Australian arm of global slimming giant Weight Watchers have won fatter pay cheques.

Angry at being paid "no more than peanuts" for each weekly customer weigh-in meeting, a cornerstone of the Weight Watchers program, a group of the meeting leaders joined the Liquor Hospitality and Miscellaneous Workers Union (LHMU).

About a dozen leaders in Sydney took the company to the Australian Industrial Relations Commission to get award pay and conditions, and to retain their commission arrangements.

On Friday last week, after a long campaign, the company agreed to substantial concessions, including an increase in the base rate for each meeting from $28 to $46.17.

Further, it agreed workers could be covered under a new federal award and they would not be made to sign individual contracts when the federal government's preferred employment model came into effect.

The company also agreed to the introduction of an hourly pay rate of $18.47 for all work done including preparation for meetings, stocktaking, compulsory monthly leaders meetings and work seminars.

Previously all this work was unpaid, said Megan Winch, one of those involved in the pay-rise fight.

Workers would also now have the opportunity to become permanent employees rather than work on a casual basis.

"We are relieved that we have finally got there and excited at the prospect of getting paid for some of the work we've done for the last 20 odd years without being paid," Ms Winch said.

"To know that you are being asked to do something and you will be paid for it is a real recognition of the work we do."

All Weight Watchers leaders must have lost weight successfully with the program and kept it off.

Their battle with their weight, and their gratitude to the company which helped them lose it, have kept the women loyal.

But the company that has grown on the goodwill of its staff will now have to come to terms with award payments and conditions.

The agreement with the Australian arm of Weight Watchers International, which is worth about $US5.5 billion ($7.1 billion), is not only a win for the workers but for the union.

Prime Minister John Howard has signalled his government will abolish unfair dismissal law protections for all employees in companies with 100 or fewer staff.

The government is expected to release its unfair dismissal legislation along with a wave of major IR changes next month.

"At a time when the Howard government wants to biff unions ... a group of Weight Watchers leaders have turned to the union," NSW LHMU secretary Annie Owens said.

"When the women who run the meetings found that Weight Watchers didn't want to pay them more than peanuts they turned to the LHMU."

Ms Owens said the most important win was the company agreeing it would not introduce the Howard government's preferred workplace model - individual employment agreements.

"Individual employment contracts are a recipe for cut-throat practices which undermine community and family values," she said.

Source: AAP News Service