that former ACCC chairman Rod Sims warns could be “tricky” for competition law. In effect, the exemption of industrial relations law from competition law threatens to underwrite a form of price fixing between rival companies and the union.This year, Labor and the unions will seek to impose Australia’s archaic industrial relations system on.
But perhaps the most insidious trend lies in the increasing proportion of trade union members who work in the public sector, including universities, schools, the public service, healthcare and in social services such as the National Disability Insurance Scheme. One-third of public sector workers are unionised, lifting the public sector share of overall union membership from 40 per cent to 44 per cent since 2016.
Labor now governs almost coast to coast at the federal and state levels, and will encourage this trend. The increasing reliance of the industrial wing of the Labor Party on taxpayer-funded public sector workers will make Labor governments less inclined to repeat the much-needed budget repair of the Hawke-Keating years, and more prepared to increase income taxes to pay for a bigger public sector.
The bill will fall on private sector workers, either through higher taxes or through lower wages generated by a less productive economy. The Australian Financial Review's succinct take on the principles at stake in major domestic and global stories - and what policy makers should do about them.
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