Labor’s Capital and Worker Well-Being

Do US Pension Funds Benefit Labor Interests

Bibliographic Data

ID19004545
AuthorsLarry Liu (0000-0002-5558-1995, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544 USA), Adam Goldstein (0000-0003-1127-3541, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544 USA, corresponding author)
Year2021
Volume100
Issue3
Pages1080-1109
Publication date2021-03-30
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSocial Forces (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0037-7732 • E-ISSN: 1534-7605
PublisherOxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1093/sf/soab025
OpenAlexW3143806273
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited25

Since the 1980s, the shareholder value revolution has undermined the position of workers and organized labor within US firms. At the same time, workers have paradoxically become one of the largest classes of shareholders through labor pension funds (LPF), including state public employee funds and private sector union-affiliated funds. Does workers’ concentrated ownership of capital in LPF represent a mechanism to advance worker interests against the prevailing wage, benefit, and jobs squeeze in publicly traded firms? This article links data on US state pension funds’ investments and shareholder activism to firm-level data on work and employment outcomes from 2001–2016. LPF shareholder proposals targeting large firms have declined over time. However, panel regression models show that intra-firm mobilization by LPF in the form of shareholder proposals is associated with modestly improved worker outcomes. There is no evidence that greater ownership share by public pension funds (PPF) is associated with more labor-friendly outcomes. This null association obtains even when focusing only on ownership by the most socially activist funds, or those from Democrat-controlled states. Nor does PPF ownership buffer workers from the negative impact of extractive hedge funds. Together, the results help reconcile contending accounts of pension fund capitalism’s effects on worker well-being. The analysis contributes to the sociological study of financialization, corporate governance, work and employment, and labor movements

Business · Corporate governance · Economics · Global assets under management · Hedge fund · Institutional investor · Labour economics · Pension · Position (finance) · Shareholder · Shareholder value · Wage · Employment and Welfare Studies · Finance · Housing, Finance, and Neoliberalism · Labor Movements and Unions