ABSTRACT
In 2009, for the first time in twenty years, the proportion of Australian workers who are members of unions increased, with union density rising slightly from 18.9 per cent in August 2008 to 19.7 per cent in 2009 (Australian Bureau of Statistics Cat. No. 6310.0 May 2010). This dividend is widely perceived to be the result of a vigorous union campaign run in the lead up to the 2007 election, which was essentially fought—and won by the Labor party—over a stronger floor of minimum fair rights for Australian workers. Women formed the emblematic images of this campaign, reflecting twenty years of slow change in gender politics in Australian unions and strong senior leadership by women in the movement. In July 2010, Sharan Burrow took this leadership to the international stage, leaving her job as President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, which she has held for a decade, to take up her new task as General Secretary of the Brussels-based International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC). Burrow was replaced by Ged Kearney, a past national president of the nurses union. In her first public speeches as incumbent ACTU President, Kearney has continued the now well-established leadership stance of embedding unionism in a transformative debate about fairness: she says she will lead the movement ‘framing the values debate on issues such as health, education, tax reform, climate change and indigenous rights’ (Workplace Express 20 May 2010: 1). These three events—an upturn in union density, a new Australian leader of the ICFTU and a new generation ‘values-oriented’ leader of the ACTU—continuing in Burrow's tradition—illustrate the significance of women in unions in Australia, and the ways in which gender politics have changed the game over the past decade.
