Melissa Donnelly to succeed Sally McManus as national secretary of the ACTU

The new head of the ACTU, Melissa Donnelly, is making a reduced working week and increased leave entitlements her priority as she takes the helm of Australia’s peak union body.

Ms Donnelly, 44, the current boss of the Public Sector Union, is poised to succeed Sally McManus as secretary following Ms McManus’ shock departure alongside ACTU president Michele O’Neil late last month.

The working mum and lawyer also highlighted how the ACTU would use its political clout going forward under her leadership, looking to stem One Nation’s rising popularity among blue collar workers.

Ms Donnelly, who has led the PSU for seven years, will assume Ms McManus’ role when the long-serving ACTU veteran steps down on August 30, according to The Australian.

It comes after her only rival for the ACTU secretary position, Steve Murphy, was urged to stay in his role as national secretary of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union.

Ms O’Neil is set to stay on as ACTU president until the end of 2026 in order to facilitate an orderly leadership transition.

Ms McManus told the ABC that Ms Donnelly’s personal background would help the union connect with its members’ cost-of-living concerns.

“With two school-aged children and having led a large union, she well knows the pressures working people are under,” she said.

Ms Donnelly also confirmed to The Australian that cost-of-living pressures would be one of her key priorities.

“Every time you go to the checkout it costs more and more,” she said.

“It will continue to be a key focus for our movement.”

She also hinted that the fight for a reduced working week was far from finished at the ACTU going forward, particularly given wins with flexible working hours at the CPSU.

She told The Australian that the issue of “how workers win back time was one that increasingly working people and the union is engaging with”.

“I think it aligns with the flexibility we have achieved in the public service around working from home,” she said.

“A shorter working week or additional rostering rights or additional leave are all different solutions to the same kind of problem.

“I think lots of workers want greater certainty and greater control of their working hours and to protect the time they have with their family and friends.”

She also took aim at One Nation, particularly with leader Pauline Hanson’s attacks on the Albanese Labor government over cost of living.

“I think workers clearly are feeling pressure and cost-of-living pressures and Pauline Hanson is trying to monopolise that,” she told The Australian.

“But the reality is her record and the record of One Nation is always with the bosses and never with the workers,” she added, highlighting the party’s tendency to oppose the Federal Government’s workplace reform moves, such as penalty rate protections.

She also highlighted moves to bring younger workers back to the union fold in an interview with the ABC, a mounting challenge given Victoria’s woes with allegations of criminal organisation links to that state’s building unions.