Abstract
In a witty and insightful paper on industrial relations and the superannuation industry in the September 1986 issue of Superfunds (No 96), Michael Devlin drew upon the analogy of marriage to describe the respective positions occupied by the various participants in the current debate about union-sponsored superannuation funds (Devlin 1986). The superannuation industry was depicted as a somewhat shy and reluctant marriage partner dragged unceremoniously into a shotgun betrothal by an over-zealous suitor who was determined to consumate the partnership with unseemly haste. It could be suggested that the protestations of sullied virtue by the superannuation industry sound rather hollow and that it should simply submit and enjoy the experience. Nevertheless, Devlin makes the very important point that the advent of union-sponsored superannuation has come as rather an unpleasant shock to many employers, who hitherto had seen superannuation as their exclusive domain and the subject of private arrangements between their employees and themselves.
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