Sally McManus

I look forward to working with Rebecca in her new role as we continue strengthening the public service and supporting the people who deliver essential services to Australians, Senator Gallagher, who was a CPSU organiser before entering politics, said.

Former CPSU Secretary Melissa Donnelly was last month appointed to lead the Australian Council of Trade Unions, ACTU, replacing Sally McManus as the leader of the nation's union movement.

Unions are holding twice-weekly meetings with the Commonwealth's lead negotiator, the Australian Public Service Commission's Alison Stott, to discuss a raft of claims, including leave entitlements, public holidays, job security, flex time and the right to disconnect.

Ms Fawcett led the CPSU's negotiations in the first round of APS-wide bargaining.

These practices emerge through strong unlawful union activity.

Indeed, the author appears to echo ACTU Secretary Sally McManus's view that bad laws should not be obeyed.

He asserts, the militant enforcement of safety, pattern bargaining, and closed shop or related default arrangements, all of which were once customary norms of 20th century industrial relations, continues to share widespread community support despite some of these practices remaining unlawful.

Instead of cleaning up the real problems in the industry it could be said that isolating the criminal enforcement issue is turning a blind eye to the real problem.

After a big first week in the role, she joined Sally Sarra on Breakfast.

Before we get to housing, your predecessor Sally McManus spent almost a decade in the role.

What do you draw from her time in office and in which ways do you think you'll be handling this job differently?

I think Sally has done an extraordinary job on behalf of union members and workers in this country.

Anthony Albanese is not necessarily a, uh, big history in the unions himself, but presumably he knows that, uh, well, the unions have a fair amount of say in the Labor government.

The ACTU has a fair amount of s- to say, and Sally McManus, the outgoing ACTU president, said the unions have got 90% of what they asked for.

That's quite a good result for an AMBA claim, uh, as they say.

What, what's your take on that?

That's right.

We're going to hear from Sally McManus, who's the outgoing secretary of the Australian Council of Trade Unions.

She's overseen a range of... impressive success stories in the australian labor movement but also faced some really quite severe and serious challenges too including a a scandal involving one of the unions that was working alongside organized crime so you're going to hear a bit about both of those in this segment today where she talks to eric

Hello, this is Eric Lee, and this is another Labor Start podcast interview with trade union leaders and activists from around the world.

And today we're delighted to have Sally McManus from the Australian Council of Trade Unions.

Sally, welcome to the show.

Thanks so much, Eric.