Posts tagged Australia
Commentary: Australia’s Not-So-Super Retirement System
July 23, 2026 // In Australia the accountability problem is exacerbated by unions’ sway over a particular type of super fund. Known as industry super funds, these were originally set up by employers and unions to steward the savings of workers in the 1970s and 1980s. In 2025, ISFs controlled more than 40% of Australian superannuation assets. Under Australian law, employers and unions appoint directors to ISF trustee boards under what is called the equal representation model. Union leaders say this ensures that workers have some indirect influence over decisions made by ISF boards and managers. That claim is difficult to square with trends in union membership. The proportion of Australian employees who belong to unions fell from 51% in 1976 to 13.1% in 2024. Unions long ago lost the authority to serve as legitimate proxies for Australian workers.
Your Uber Driver May Soon Be Unionized. At What Cost?
June 15, 2026 // In fact, this result has already been seen in locales that have pushed aggressive minimum wage laws for gig workers—another one-size-fits-all progressive labor policy that left-leaning cities have begun importing to gig work in recent years. For instance, the waitlist to become an UberEats driver in New York City grew to 27,000 after the Big Apple passed a minimum wage ordinance for app-based food delivery in 2023; the minimum wage rules forced Uber to limit drivers in an effort to control spiking labor costs. Unfortunately, draconian sector-wide labor rules will also raise labor costs for these platforms, with the costs inevitably being passed along to riders in the form of more expensive Uber rides. (Such a passed-along price increase has also already been seen with the minimum wage mandates for food delivery.) The gig worker unionization drive that is spreading acr