Organized Labor as Shareholder Activist: Building Coalitions to Promote Worker Capitalism

In the past, the traditional question posed by unions was: which side are you on? --presenting a clear choice between labor and capital. As membership and bargaining power fall, however, unions are asserting their rights as shareholders to influence corporate decision making outside the conventional labor law framework. Because the National Labor Relations Act does not adequately protect workers\u27 rights, unions have devised innovative methods as shareholders to exercise unprecedented power over managers. In only a few years, labor-shareholders have become highly visible players in the institutional shareholder movement. As a group, labor-shareholders submit one of the largest numbers of shareholder resolutions. Even more significantly, they have one of the highest success rates in obtaining passage of their proposals

The American Corporation in the Twenty-first Century

Opportunistic Downsizing of Senior Workers: Exploring the Fiduciary/Contract Distinction to Enforce Implicit Employment Agreements lecture given by Marleen A. O\u27Connor, Professor of Law at Stetson College. The Motivational Implications of Debt Financing lecture given by George Triantis, Nicholas E. Chimicles Research Professor of Business Law and Regulation at the University of Virginia and the Director of the John M. Olin Program in Law and Economics. Political Backlash and the Corporation lecture given by Mark Roe, Professor of Law at Columbia University and Director of the Columbia Law School Sloan Project on Corporate Governance. Venture Capital and the Structure of Capital Markets: Banks versus Stock Markets lecture given by Ronald J. Gilson, Charles J. Meyers Professor of Law and Business at Stanford University and The Marc and Eva Stern Professor of Law and Business at Columbia University. The Shaping Force of Corporate Law in the New Economic Order lecture given by Jeffrey N. Gordon, Professor of Law and Co-director Center for Law and Economic Studies at Columbia University