The first woman elected to lead the public sector union, Jan McMahon, has since been returned for six terms as general secretary, a tenure that has seen her lock horns with governments both Labor and Liberal, and famously help end the era of Mike Rann and Kevin Foley in a bitter standoff over pay and conditions.

“I would never walk away from a disagreement with the Government,” she told InDaily.

“You need to defend the services that the public sector provides to ordinary South Australians.”

John Bannon was still Premier when McMahon was first elected to lead the union in 1992, but her journey in the union began a decade earlier.

“I started off as a worksite rep at the CFS,” she recalled.

“They were negotiating an agreement and I was elected as worksite rep to be a communicator between the PSA staff and members.”

She progressed through the wages committee and as a councillor before being elected the PSA’s first female president in 1988, and General Secretary four years later.

We’ve never walked away from any kind of campaign

One of her most significant battles came with John Olsen’s Liberal Government in 1999, when the union held its first statewide strike in 20 years as it successfully campaigned for public service wages parity, bringing a glut of agency agreements under one umbrella.

“We were able to say ‘this is ridiculous, it’s all one employer … you really need one set of wages and conditions for everybody’,” she said.

“It cost $81 million to put all public servants on wage parity … that was certainly significant.”

Other milestones included a 2006 arbitration case against the Government for increased paid maternity leave, which saw the entitlement raised from four to 14 weeks (it’s now at least 16), a 2009 campaign against the abolition of the Upper House, and that bitter battle – culminating in a successful High Court challenge – with long-time Treasurer and adversary Kevin Foley over his infamous 2010 budget cuts, targeting public sector jobs along with recreational leave loading and long service leave entitlements.

A brutal union-led protest outside the State Labor Conference was a symbol of the decline of the Rann-Foley era.

New beginnings: The union magazine shows the friendly start of a relationship that was to sour by decade’s end.

“It certainly did end their leadership,” McMahon believes.

“But they had to be held to account, and now (the entitlements) have all been returned and we’re very grateful for that … but that was a campaign that had to be had.”

McMahon insists such campaigns are “not about self interest, in terms of only wages and conditions … but protecting vital services”.

Through her tenure, the PSA has always kept a well-stocked war-chest, standing prepared to launch a television or billboard blitz in support of their cause.

“We’ve never walked away from any kind of campaign,” she said.

“We’ve tried to change the language: we don’t refer to people as ‘public servants’, we refer to prison officers and child protection workers … we try to put a title.”

But the campaigning zeal and its undoubted success in securing outcomes for public servants has ensured the union has had its critics.

Jan McMahon talks to InDaily. Photo: Nat Rogers / InDaily

“The mantra from some of those, like Business SA and the Motor Trade Association, has always been that the way to solve SA’s economic problems is just to slash public sector jobs,” McMahon said.

“It’s a mantra that they never change, yet what they don’t realise – particularly with many small businesses, and SA has a high proportion of small businesses – they rely so much on the services public servants provide, whether their children go to a local school or use the SA dental service … fundamentally they don’t realise many of their members would use those important services.”

After 23 years, she believes the time is right for generational change.

“I do think it’s a high note to be leaving on,” she said.

“There’ll be a new EBA to be negotiated in 2016, I think it’s fair that a new leadership team develop that (so) this is a good opportunity to take a break.”

She will remain on various boards, and wants to see more of her grandchildren and parents-in-law in between further adventures.

“I have a passion for travel,” she noted.

McMahon and long-time colleague Peter Christopher during the 1999 parity row with the Olsen Government.

But she concedes the loss earlier this year of her long-time sidekick, when the union’s chief industrial officer Peter Christopher retired, might have influenced her decision.

“Certainly Peter and I started within two weeks of one another, and we’ve always worked very closely together,” she said.

McMahon says she worked closely with Opposition Leader Steven Marshall before last year’s election to convince the Liberals not to seek wholesale job cuts, and continues to meet regularly with Premier Jay Weatherill – the one-time minister for Public Sector Reform.

“We’ve been able to have some very honest and frank discussions,” she said.

“They’re respectful conversations…we might not always agree but they’re done in a dignified manner.

“Certainly, whoever governs, I have to get the best deal I can for members.”

She leaves with many entitlements strengthened and others, once threatened, intact. But despite ongoing private sector complaints about the burgeoning public service, McMahon laments a concerted attack on her members’ livelihoods.

“There have been significant job cuts,” she said.

“We really see that workloads have gone up in the public sector, and it does impact on services.

“I think what needs to happen in the public sector, we do need to have a look at those workloads (because) with SA’s economic position, more people are going to rely on the services.

“The only reform that I see needed is one where we do need to get more people in, to assist families in what are just normal services they should be able to get.”

The union’s president Lindsay Oxlad, McMahon’s electoral “running mate”, will join her in vacating the PSA leadership.

At a council meeting last night, current assistant secretary Neville Kitchin was elected to fill McMahon’s vacancy as acting general secretary, before an election is held mid-next year.