After securing wage rises for low-paid workers, weathering death threats and working with three PMs – the ACTU secretary is ready for a break
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Sally McManus started her job as the country’s most powerful trade union leader amid howls of criticism.
Shouted down for suggesting union members were right to break “unjust” industrial laws in a live TV interview, McManus quickly adjusted to the high-decibel work of being secretary of the Australian Council of Trade Unions.
Now, nearly a decade later, she is ready to turn the volume down.
“I’m looking forward to having a break,” McManus told Guardian Australia before handing over the job at the end of the month.
“It’s been 33 years as a union official, 22 of them as a leader, and nine-and-a-half as ACTU secretary. It never stops.”
McManus announced her departure last month, on the same day the ACTU president, Michele O’Neil, revealed plans to step down as well. Anthony Albanese described both – the first all-female leadership team in the ACTU’s 99-year history – as “giants of the labour movement”.
McManus has helped reshape Australia’s industrial landscape, pushing the Albanese government and business on a worker-friendly agenda.
Along with O’Neil, she has helped lead campaigns for same job, same pay protections, laws giving workers the right to disconnect, wage theft criminalisation and ensuring minimum pay, insurance and safety standards for gig economy workers.
Her tenure has spanned the Turnbull, Morrison and Albanese governments, economic disruption from the Covid-19 pandemic, Labor’s jobs and skills summit, allegations of corruption and lawlessness by union leaders, including the CFMEU, and, a year ago this week, the productivity roundtable convened by the treasurer, Jim Chalmers.
McManus says some of her closest held victories include wage rises for low-paid workers, help for women and children affected by domestic violence and helping strengthen key industries including early childhood education and aged care.
But the high-profile role has brought pressures.
Since that first ABC TV interview on the day she was elected in March 2017, McManus has faced the “inner most horribleness” of critics – online and in real life.
