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Labor in the Age of Finance

Sanford Jacoby catalogs the array of allies and finance-based tactics labor deployed to stanch membership losses in the private sector. By leveraging pension capital, unions restructured corporate governance around issues like executive pay and accountability. In Congress, they drew on their political influence to press for corporate reforms in the wake of business scandals and the financial crisis. The effort restrained imperial CEOs but could not bridge the divide between workers and owners. Wages lagged behind investor returns, feeding the inequality identified by Occupy Wall Street. And labor’s slide continued.

Honorable Mention, Book Award of the European Group on Organization Studies, 2022

“This compelling and important book demonstrates how a reinvigorated labor movement is the first and best way of reducing inequality and strengthening democracy. Labor in the Age of Finance is destined to become the leading book on the history of labor’s corporate finance activism.”

— Teresa Ghilarducci, The New School for Social Research

“Jacoby bring a historian’s eye to the vexed relation of labor to finance capital. The story is a fascinating one that highlights the dilemma facing labor unions in their capacity as shareholders. Is it really possible to transform the power of money into power for workers? Jacoby shows that labor’s influence over capital is more extensive than many will have imagined, and is likely to endure.”

— Simon F. Deakin, University of Cambridge

 

 

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Category: Product ID: 1648

Description

Since the 1970s, American unions have shrunk dramatically, as has their economic clout. Labor in the Age of Finance traces the search for new sources of power, showing how unions turned financialization to their advantage.

Sanford Jacoby catalogs the array of allies and finance-based tactics labor deployed to stanch membership losses in the private sector. By leveraging pension capital, unions restructured corporate governance around issues like executive pay and accountability. In Congress, they drew on their political influence to press for corporate reforms in the wake of business scandals and the financial crisis. The effort restrained imperial CEOs but could not bridge the divide between workers and owners. Wages lagged behind investor returns, feeding the inequality identified by Occupy Wall Street. And labor’s slide continued.

Honorable Mention, Book Award of the European Group on Organization Studies, 2022

A compelling blend of history, economics, and politics, Labor in the Age of Finance explores the paradox of capital bestowing power to labor in the tumultuous era of Enron, Lehman Brothers, and Dodd-Frank.