International Women’s Day (IWD) takes place on Sunday 8 March 2026.

The theme this year is ‘Balance the Scales’, which calls attention to the urgent need to ensure fair, inclusive and accessible justice for all women.

Why we celebrate IWD

IWD has always been about collective action. The very first IWD was organised to celebrate the victory of women textile workers and quickly became a rallying point for women worldwide fighting for the right to vote. It sparked a global movement, one powered by courage, solidarity and determination.

In Australia, that spirit ignited in the Sydney Domain on 25 March 1928, when women marched for an eight-hour working day, equal pay for equal work, full-pay annual holidays, and a basic wage for the unemployed. Those bold demands echoed across the country, with rallies and marches continuing ever since, shaping the rights upon which many of us rely today.

IWD remains vitally important to unions as it provides a platform to highlight ongoing gender inequality in the workplace, such as the gender pay gap, superannuation disparity and lack of safety and flexibility.

Women in the PSA CPSU NSW

Your union, the PSA CPSU NSW, has been at the forefront of campaigns to secure gender equality in the workplace by fighting for equal pay, equal access to job opportunity, paid parental leave and job security, flexible work hours, family and community service leave, lactation breaks, and, more recently, 20 days’ paid domestic violence leave and improvements to paid parental leave entitlements.

Last year, we celebrated 95 years of our Women’s Council which originally formed as part of campaigns for equal pay and representation for women in the union. You can learn more about the council’s proud history by watching this short film celebrating some of the significant wins for women that came out of this body.