Samir Sonti interviews Sandy Jacoby, author of Labor in the Age of Finance: Pensions, Politics, and Corporations from Deindustrialization to Dodd-Frank. Jacoby’s book and this conversation offer insights into some of the strategic choices organized labor has made since the 1990s. In response to the shift from industrial to finance capitalism and the steep decline in union density, unions have sought new forms of leverage within the economy. Jacoby observes that those strategies have tended to focus on legislative reform, in the case of Dodd Frank for example, and union pension shareholder activism. In both realms, Jacoby argues, organized labor’s tactics have had the unbidden effect of bolstering shareholder influence in corporate governance.
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