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The Rise of the Working-Class Shareholder: Labor’s Last Best Weapon

Product ID : 30655438


Galleon Product ID 30655438
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About The Rise Of The Working-Class

Product Description When Steven Burd, CEO of the supermarket chain Safeway, cut wages and benefits, starting a five-month strike by 59,000 unionized workers, he was confident he would win. But where traditional labor action failed, a new approach was more successful. With the aid of the California Public Employees' Retirement System, a $300 billion pension fund, workers led a shareholder revolt that unseated three of Burd's boardroom allies. In The Rise of the Working-Class Shareholder: Labor's Last Best Weapon, David Webber uses cases such as Safeway's to shine a light on labor's most potent remaining weapon: its multitrillion-dollar pension funds. Outmaneuvered at the bargaining table and under constant assault in Washington, state houses, and the courts, worker organizations are beginning to exercise muscle through markets. Shareholder activism has been used to divest from anti-labor companies, gun makers, and tobacco; diversify corporate boards; support Occupy Wall Street; force global warming onto the corporate agenda; create jobs; and challenge outlandish CEO pay. Webber argues that workers have found in labor's capital a potent strategy against their exploiters. He explains the tactic's surmountable difficulties even as he cautions that corporate interests are already working to deny labor's access to this powerful and underused tool. The Rise of the Working-Class Shareholder is a rare good-news story for American workers, an opportunity hiding in plain sight. Combining legal rigor with inspiring narratives of labor victory, Webber shows how workers can wield their own capital to reclaim their strength. Review "Webber makes a persuasive case for the potential power of the pension funds he seeks to enlist in this effort...[he] backs up his argument... with examples of corporate battles they have fought and won... [and] makes a good case that there is no logical reason always to define those workers' interests narrowly..." -- New York Review of Books "Webber weaves narratives of activist campaigns (pension fund administrators, union staffers, and government comptrollers are the book's unlikely heroes) with fine-grained analysis of the relevant legal and financial concepts in accessible prose...Webber marshals a lot of information into a common sense argument that will appeal to anyone with an interest in the current labor movement." ― Publishers Weekly "Excellent book." --Forbes "In his recent book, "Rise of the Working Class Shareholder", Boston University law professor David Webber recounts the history of labour's investor activism, predicting that, "there is no going back to a world in which labour and capital are mutually exclusive, lined up across a barren cavern of confrontation". --Financial Times "Captivating book." -- The Conference Board "Where Webber's book shines is in demonstrating how labor's capital already influences the working of the financial system, notably in its efforts to improve governance." -- Dissent Magazine "Shareholder activism should strike most thinking conservatives as perhaps the fairest form of activism. The shareholder has earned his seat at the table; he's bought the stock. He's got skin in the game and an interest in the long-term health of the company. This isn't some lawmaker or bureaucrat imposing a change from the outside, with or without an understanding of the challenges facing that business." -- The National Review "A thoughtful, informed analysis of the issues raised when union and public pension funds assert their economic power." -- The Deal "Highly recommended." --Nell Minow "In difficult times for the labor movement, Webber offers some reason for hope. In the book, Webber chronicles how a handful of strategic labor activists have been able to harness the shareholder power of "labor's capital" to fight for corporate accountability and the interests of working people. The book mak