Mount Isa hosted an interesting visitor last week, Sally McManus, the new secretary of the ACTU.
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Don’t be fooled by the name of the role “secretary”, Ms McManus holds the most powerful union position in Australia and is a figure of national interest involved in most political matters pertaining to unions.
She is new in the role and got in hot water when she fronted ABC’s 7.30 and would not distance herself from the CFMEU’s industrial wildcat actions.
What caused the kerfuffle was when she told the interviewer she had had no problem with members breaking industrial laws, arguing the rule of law only needs to be upheld when the laws are justified.
In this she is following a proud union tradition of getting those unjust laws changed by industrial action though that was not how some angry right-wing commentators and members of the government saw it,
Ms McManus said the resulting hullaballoo over her words was exposed as blatant hypocrisy by the recent actions of three government ministers who narrowly avoided contempt charges after criticising Victoria's Supreme Court.
Ms McManus was not in Mount Isa to discuss those matters, however intriguing, but instead to listen to the concerns of local union members and attend a Labor Day dinner at the Irish Club organised by the local trade union movement.
She told the North West Star she was on a tour of regional Queensland where the biggest issue she was finding was getting good secure jobs without having wages and conditions undercut.
Ms McManus also noted the growing power of corporations and how unequal that was, especially as the rights of working people weren’t strong enough to keep up with corporate power.
When asked what was the role of the ACTU today, she said the organisation had to be looking ahead to what issues where most likely going to affect working people.
“I’ve been in this job three months and clearly the biggest issue of our time is about inequality,” she said. “A big part of that is the decline in union movement numbers and the fact that working people don’t have strong enough rights at work, when the job is casualised you lose all your security .” – Derek Barry