A tribute to long-serving union leader and retiring ACTU senior vice-president Joe de Bruyn was pulled on the final day of the ­labour movement’s triennial gathering because of outrage over his stance on gay marriage and his union’s approach to industrial agreements.

Based on a draft resolution obtained by The Australian, the ACTU congress would have awarded Mr de Bruyn its ­“meritorious service award” in recognition of his long leadership of the conservative Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Association.

The backlash against Mr de Bruyn would have been led by the Australasian Meat Industry Employees Union, with Victorian branch secretary Paul Conway being nominated to speak against the resolution.

The Victorian branch of the AMIEU is incensed at the ­negotiation of a new national industrial agreement with supermarket giant Coles, claiming the deal has benefited SDA members but resulted in reduced wages and conditions for its members. Mr Conway also planned to highlight Mr de Bruyn’s staunch opposition to gay marriage if given the opportunity.

“From our point of view, the SDA stands for sell-out deals and that’s what they’ve done for our members, for future meat workers coming into Coles and Woolworths, and that’s why we’re opposed to Joe de Bruyn getting any more awards from the ACTU,” Mr Conway told The Australian.

Other delegates had planned to stage a protest by turning their backs on the union warrior, who is known for his outspoken opposition to gay marriage and his long leadership at the SDA dating back to 1978. Some are upset the ACTU has been unable to take a more definitive stance on the issue of gay marriage, which they said was because of Mr de Bruyn’s blocking influence, while resolutions were passed on a range of other issues including the right of the Saharawi people in the Western Sahara to self-­determination.

Mr de Bruyn told The Australian it was “well known” that meat workers were unhappy with the agreement and his views on gay marriage were also “well known”. He did not wish to add to them.

It is understood Mr de Bruyn can still be formally honoured and receive his award for many years of service to the union movement at a later ACTU executive meeting. The draft resolution to recognise Mr de Bruyn showed it was to be moved by SDA national secretary Gerard Dwyer and seconded by Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union national secretary Michael O’Connor.

“Given that congress has the authority to recognise officers of unions who have made a special and extraordinary contribution to the achievements of the union movement, has had a long period of service within the union ­movement and has occupied demanding positions in their organisations, congress awards Joe de Bruyn the ACTU Meritorious Service Award,” it said.

The resolution was not moved. Instead, ACTU president Ged Kearney told the congress: “We will be acknowledging Joe’s service later on in the year so please keep an eye out for when we will be having (it).”

Mr Dwyer strongly rejected claims that meat workers would be worse off under the national agreement and noted the planned protest was a poor way to recognise the service of Mr de Bruyn. He also questioned whether the protest would have proceeded had the resolution been put.

“I don’t know whether people would have spoken against it. We believed there would be speakers opposing other matters in congress that never happened. So I think it’s a bit of a hypothetical.”

The AMIEU blames Mr de Bruyn for the agreement, which is yet to be approved by the Fair Work Commission. The union claims penalty rate changes mean that new butchers at Coles will be $12,000 a year worse off if they work Thursdays to Sundays while cabinet attendants, who wrap and shelve the meat, will be $8000 a year worse off.

The deal would capture AMIEU workers currently on state agreements, with the exception of workers in the Northern Territory and Queensland, with between 550 and 600 meat workers in Victoria to be affected. Other unions were also included in negotiations including the Australian Workers Union and Transport Workers Union. The national agreement covers more than 75,000 workers but the majority of union members are SDA and the AMIEU is seeking to stop its ­approval on the grounds it fails to meet the better-off-overall test.

Mr Dwyer acknowledged there were changes to penalty rates under the agreement, but said increases in base wages for new workers offset the changes.

He was confident the deal would pass the test and said other supermarket chains such as Woolworths had been on a national agreement for many years.

“The value of the package for employees is maintained but will be expressed in a different way. For existing employees, their penalties will be saved but they don’t have access to the same increases up front,” he said. “The situation is that the value of people’s take-home package is going to be on par, but it is going to be expressed in different ways for existing staff versus new staff. This type of change has been managed in our industry and all other industries in this country since the introduction of enterprise bargaining.”

The move to pull the resolution followed a decision by the AWU and the Rail Tram and Bus Union to abstain from a key vote to increase affiliation fees by $2 a member each year to place the movement on a permanent campaign footing and amass a $13 million war-chest to dislodge the Abbott government.

The stance taken by the AWU meant its national secretary Scott McDine withdrew his nomination for the position vacated by Mr de Bruyn.