Author
- Michelle Grattan
Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra
The country’s top two union leaders, Australian Council of Trade Union (ACTU) secretary Sally McManus and president Michelle O’Neil, announced last week they’re stepping down from their roles by the end of the year.
After nearly a decade of representing around 1.6 million workers, McManus will finish at the end of this month.
Joining us on the podcast, McManus said her successor hasn’t been announced yet, but hopes they’ll be in place within the next few weeks.
McManus nominated falling real wages and cost-of-living pressures were the biggest immediate challenges for her successor. But the economy-wide threat to jobs from artificial intelligence (AI) was another key area to watch, which could see unions push for stronger federal government intervention.
What we will be wanting to do is ensure that the workplace rights that we do have are fit for purpose […] And if they’re not, well, then there’ll be an expectation from unions and I think the community in general that any government will act to protect Australians and Australian workers.
Does that mean unions will demand tougher rules from the federal government to protect jobs against AI job cuts?
McManus pointed to the existing obligation on all employers to consult when technological change is being rolled out, before people are sacked. But if AI ends up affecting the whole economy, she flagged unions will demand stronger protections, retraining and more:
At the moment we’re seeing [redundancies] happen in tech companies […] It doesn’t appear to be yet to be going beyond that. However, if it does, and there’s a very big possibility that it could, what will be needed will be way more than ‘we’ll consult and then you lose your job’, because people won’t be able to adjust. They won’t able to find jobs elsewhere, because those jobs won’t exist because AI has got rid of them too.
In which case, there will be an expectation on the government and from everyone not to sit back and just let that happen […] At that point, if that happened, we’d be demanding shorter working hours for no loss of pay as a means of sharing those benefits. That’s something that the government could do.
Obviously, if that type of thing happened, there’d be a whole lot of things that would need to be considered as we have in the past, like free training. You might want to do things around, say for example, people’s HECS debts and not having HECs you’re having to pay if you are displaced because of AI. These are just ideas, but [they’re] the type of things that you would need to do if that type of displacement happened.
On building industry corruption
Mcmanus said trying to save jobs in the COVID-19 pandemic was the single hardest period she worked through. But years of alleged violence and corruption in the construction industry also took its toll.
Back in 2019, McManus called for the resignation of the Victorian secretary of the Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU), John Setka, after he pleaded guilty to domestic violence. In the six years since then, more allegations about corruption in the construction industry – especially in Victoria – emerged.
McManus said making enemies in the CFMEU has had a lasting impact, including being warned by police about threats to her safety. But that at some point, she decided “I just don’t care”.
It wasn’t very comfortable for a long period of time in the streets of Melbourne. And that only got worse, obviously, once the CFMEU was put into administration and people were looking for people to blame.
[…] If you walked past a building site, there were a lot of abuse. And threats that came through the ACTU to me and warnings from police then about my own safety. As people know I had to spend a bit of time out of Melbourne and had to be extra careful for a period of time. I mean that’s all died down, but I wouldn’t say it’s gone away.
[…] A while ago now, something just clicked in my brain, it was like […] ‘you guys do what you want, I’m not backing down, I am not changing. And make all your threats, I don’t care’ […] I don’t know if it’s wise, but it’s liberating and I sort of intend to keep thinking that way.
McManus said even after the newly announced Victorian royal commission, “a lot more needs to be done” to deal with the “criminal ecosystem” in construction – in Victoria and beyond.
The whole way that industry has operated in Victoria in particular is based on not just subcontracting, but sub-subcontructing, like creating layers of middle people who are clipping the ticket. And they’re doing so in ways that are not just unethical, but unlawful and using violence. So we absolutely want to see all of that cleaned up.
[…] The construction industry around the world is rife with corruption. Part of it has got to do […] with structural reasons that make it more or less likely for that to occur. Even if you look at the differences in states in Australia, the level of corruption in Victoria is on another scale. In New South Wales, it is there, and it’s there all around the country, but just not like this.
Why it was time to go
McManus said before looking for another job, she plans to take a break to go bird watching and also recover from upcoming surgery.
I’ve been a union leader for 22 years and I was 55 last week. And it’s a long time, nine and a half years in this role. And that includes those COVID years, which I reckon […] they’re worth double.
[…] Unfortunately, I’ve lost all hearing in one of my ears. And so I’m going to have a cochlear implant, which I know you’ve got to really concentrate on the rehab for that. So I want to give myself the best shot of that […] And after I’ve had the implant and done that, it’ll be time for me to think ‘OK, what am I going to do next?’.
