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From the back cover: The billions of dollars in Canadian pension funds belong to the workers for whom these funds were established. The money, in effect, is their "deferred wages", but, even though these vast sums now constitute the largest source of capital in the country, it has only been in the past few decades that workers, through their unions, have started to play a role in how, when and where their pension money is invested. This informative and fact-filled book examines the growing involvement of labour organizations in the management--and more often the co-management--of pension funds. It looks at the duties and rights of union trustees on pension boards, at their "fiduciary responsibility", at the crucial issues of social and ethical investments--and it also explains the success of progressive labour-sponsored investment funds.
Pension funds have come to play an increasingly important role within the new economy. According to Statistics Canada, in 2006, trusteed pension funds in Canada had $836 billion of assets and represented the savings of 4.6 million Canadian workers. Pensions at Work is a unique collection of papers that uses a labour perspective to deal with the socially responsible investment of pension funds. Featuring leading Canadian and international scholars, it builds on existing scholarship on socially responsible investment and on the growing interest of the Canadian labour movement in joint trusteeship. What is unique about this collection is that it synthesizes three distinct themes - socially resp...
Public private partnerships in which the private sector takes on roles previously carried out by the public sector have been heavily promoted in the provision of infrastructure throughout the world, but especially in the UK, the USA and Canada. In Ideology Over Economics, economist John Loxley examines the expansion of P3s following the 2008 global financial crisis, when corporations responded to the crisis by lobbying governments for financial assistance and austerity governments responded by expanding financial resources for P3s. For many governments, the rationale for using P3s lies in the state manufactured fiscal crisis. The usual economic arguments underlie government largesse – lower cost, reduced risk and high-quality construction for public projects. In these arguments little has changed. From his close examination of case studies of P3s in the UK, Canada and developing countries, John Loxley concludes that P3s do not achieve any of these promised goals and argues that the expansion of P3s owes more to ideology than to a rational evaluation of their economic and community building benefits.
In 2008 we watched as trillions of dollars vanished before our eyes, enveloped in the crash and burn of Wall Street's bottom line. As working Americans and retirees awake from the aftermath, we're searching for answers and alternatives to the reckless loans and dicey short-term bets that ravaged our savings and retirement assets. Up From Wall Street: The Responsible Investment Alternative makes the case that there are strategic and socially responsible investment paths that have the capacity to rebuild our economy and infrastructure, reinvigorate our cities, and create the highly-anticipated green jobs of the future. Through real-life stories and case studies, Thomas Croft illustrates how th...
In Beyond the Welfare State, Sirvan Karimi utilizes a synthesis of Marxian class analysis and the power resources model to provide an analytical foundation for the divergent pattern of public pension systems in Canada and Australia.
The SRI phenomenon is said to be entering the mainstream of financial intermediation. From a fairly marginal practice promoted or campaigned for by NGO’s and at odds with financial practice and orthodoxy it grew into well formulated policy adopted by a wide range of investors. Academic literature on SRI has also boomed on the assumption that mainstreaming is taking place. However, little thinking has been carried out on questions specifically arising from this alleged ‘mainstreaming’. This book, addressed to those with a scholarly or practitioner’s interest in SRI, starts filling this neglected dimension. Today, one cannot ignore the difficulties of main stream financing. The financi...
This book will spark a debate concerning the need for democracy and accountability in the governance of trillions of dollars of plan members' pension plan assets and the legitimacy of the present, mostly unaccountable, corporate governance decisions made by these plans. The author analyzes the reasons for this passivity, pointing to conflicts of interest with respect to corporate governance activity in pension plans and also to limitations in corporate, securities, and pension law. He argues that plan members should be given a voice in pension plan governance and the plans made accountable, and he outlines the legal reforms necessary.
In No Small Change, Tessa Hebb examines the ability of pension funds, now the largest single driver of financial markets around the world, to use their ownership position to change corporate practices for the sake of the bottom line and, perhaps, change the world for the better in the process. Pension funds are not the new moral conscience of the twenty-first century, but they are significant owners of today's corporations. Because pension funds have to pay out benefits over many decades, they are increasingly concerned about the long-term value of the stocks they hold in their portfolios. Risks posed by climate change can have a huge impact on future returns. To lower the risks associated w...
This book presents a series of research essays on the state of unions in many different parts of the world. Written by leading researchers in the field it provides insights into the causes of union decline. But it goes beyond historical analyses to investigate the prospects for the future. Can unions organize in segments of the workforce such as the youth, women, low wage workers and those in the informal sector? Can unions network with other organizations such as NGOs nationally and internationally to gain power and influence?