{"id":59391,"date":"2026-07-27T11:47:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-27T11:47:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/59391\/"},"modified":"2026-07-27T11:47:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-27T11:47:11","slug":"actu-leaders-sally-mcmanus-and-michele-oneil-anounce-resignations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/59391\/","title":{"rendered":"ACTU leaders Sally McManus and Michele O\u2019Neil anounce resignations"},"content":{"rendered":"

The powerful heads of the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), Sally McManus and Michele O’Neil, have announced their resignations to ”make way for a new generation”.<\/p>\n

Ms McManus has been the peak body’s secretary since 2017 and Ms O’Neil its president since 2018.<\/p>\n

Ms McManus will finish in the role at the end of August and Ms O’Neil will depart before the end of the year, in order to ”assist with the leadership transition”.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Michele O’Neil will step down by the end of the year. (ABC News: Tom Hancock)<\/p>\n

Their replacements ate yet to be decided on, according to a statement from the ACTU.<\/p>\n

”The ACTU’s union affiliates will decide on the next leadership team, initially with the ACTU Executive filling the casual vacancies and then through an election at next year’s Congress, which will coincide with the ACTU’s 100th Anniversary,” the statement said.<\/p>\n

Ms McManus said it was “the right time” for new leaders “to take our movement forward”.<\/p>\n

”I am proud of our movement’s achievements, and it has been an honour to serve the union movement and working people as the secretary of the ACTU for nearly a decade,” she said.<\/p>\n

The Transport Workers’ Union was among the first to thank the outgoing leaders, noting their work fighting for the COVID-era JobKeeper scheme and pushing Labor to establish a Fair Work Court, which it announced plans for at the party conference last week.<\/p>\n

In 2024 Ms McManus denied she knew about the alleged infiltration of criminals<\/a> into the Victorian branch of the Construction, Forestry and Maritime Employees Union (CMFEU).<\/p>\n

She also oversaw the ACTU’s suspension divisions of the CFMEU<\/a> while it cleaned up its act.<\/p>\n

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese also thanked the pair for their “tireless advocacy” for workers, but also for their support to him personally.<\/p>\n

“It is fitting that Sally and Michele announce they’re stepping down from their respective positions at a time when there have been significant wage increases in critical and long-undervalued sectors, the gender pay gap is at a record low and union membership is growing for the first time in decades” he said in a statement.<\/p>\n

“Personally, I will miss the friendship and support these two giants of the labour movement have offered me over many years, but especially since I became Labor Leader in 2019 and then Prime Minister is 2022.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The powerful heads of the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), Sally McManus and Michele O’Neil, have announced…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":59392,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[45042,65361,65360,22,21,65359,65358],"class_list":["post-59391","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-actu","tag-actu-president","tag-actu-secretary","tag-au","tag-austrlia","tag-michele-oneil","tag-sally-mcmanus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59391","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59391"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59391\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59392"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}