01/08/2026
Our Hunter Womens committee would like to congratulate union legends and glass-ceiling smashers Sally McManus and Michele O'Neil following the announcement of their intention to stand aside from the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) at the end of their terms.
The McManus-O'Neil leadership inherited:
historically weak wage growth
falling union density
expanding labour hire, casualisation and gig work
restricted bargaining
the ABCC and Registered Organisations Commission
repeated legislative attacks on unions
and
a Federal government openly hostile to organised labour
They leave behind
Same Job, Same Pay
criminal penalties for wage theft
delegates rights
the right to disconnect
10 days' paid domestic-violence leave
stronger collective and multi-employer bargaining
better casual-conversion rights
gig-worker and road transport protections
superannuation at 12% and paid while on parental leave
an abolished ABCC and ROC
stronger safety laws
engineered-stone ban
a federal worker-transition authority, and a union movement regaining their place
But.
The single most consequential thing McManus and O’Neil did for women wasn’t any individual pay rise — it was changing who carries the burden of proof on gender undervaluation.
Before 2022, equal pay was an individual applicant’s problem. There had been exactly one successful case under the old laws in thirty years, and they were largely unworkable. The 2022 amendments made gender equality an object of the Fair Work Act and gave the Commission power to order increases where work had been undervalued on gender grounds. The FWC then said the issues were too broad to be left to individual applications and had to be resolved systematically.
That’s the structural win. Everything below flows from it.
What it delivered
• Aged care — 3 to 28.5 per cent, direct and indirect care workers, fully funded by the Commonwealth. A predominantly female, migrant, low-paid workforce.
• Early childhood — 10% above award in year one, 15% in year two.
• Five priority awards, 2025 — pharmacists 14.1%, with up to 35% proposed for health professionals, dental assistants and pathology collectors.
• The aggregate — the gap fell to 78.9 cents in the dollar, a $28,356 annual difference, with the last 12 months’ movement exceeding the previous five years’ trend.
Beyond pay
• Safety from harassment reframed as an industrial matter. Stop-sexual-harassment orders in the FWC from November 2021, then a positive duty on employers, an express prohibition on hostile workplace environments, and expanded AHRC enforcement powers. That shifts sexual harassment from a complaint you make after the damage to a risk the employer must design out — the same logic as any other WHS hazard.
• 10 days paid family and domestic violence leave, universal, plus FDV as a protected attribute against discrimination and adverse action. The independent review found 91% of users said it helped them maintain income and 89% said it helped them keep their job.
• Retirement income — super now paid on government PPL, and PPL extended from 24 to 26 weeks. This attacks the super gap, which is worse than the pay gap and compounds over a lifetime.
• Flexible work rights strengthened, with men’s share of parental leave rising to 20% in 2024–25, up three points in a year.
The honest limits
Three things worth naming if you’re using this publicly:
Funding dependency. The care sector rises are Commonwealth-funded. They were won through a Labor government’s budget, not through bargaining power in those workplaces. A change of government puts the outyears at risk in a way that an enterprise agreement wouldn’t.
Phasing. The 2025 decision phases in over three to five years. Much of this is a promise to women, not yet money in their accounts. And unions themselves flagged concerns that the SCHADS changes could disadvantage some workers.
Coverage is thinnest where women are most exposed. The revaluation reaches award-reliant care and health work. It reaches much less into retail, hospitality, cleaning, and the casualised private service economy — where women are heavily represented, density is low, and there’s no equivalent public funder to pay for a work value case.
Verdict
Judged against the last fifty years, this is the most significant period for working women since the 1969 and 1972 equal pay decisions — and arguably more durable, because it built an ongoing mechanism rather than a one-off ruling. Judged against what’s left, the movement now has a legal instrument that works for publicly funded feminised sectors and hasn’t yet been proven anywhere else.
Sally and Michele leave a huge legacy for workers moving forward. It's up to us now to keep that momentum going.
Union Strong!
