THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF WORKER PENSION FUNDS

Increasing concentration of economic power within the corporate sector, as well as the extent of corporate control by a few financial institutions such as commercial banks, have been subjects of intense scrutiny and debate in recent years. However, the role of private and public worker retirement trusts in providing power for institutional investors has not been adequately addressed. Pension fund assets, which were relatively inconsequential prior to 1960, and their investment in and share of total corporate equities minor, have grown to over $l410 billion by the end of 1977. In their analysis of and interest in public and private pension trusts, scholars, employers and even employees have tended to emphasize narrow economic issues such as investment performance. It is the central argument of this article that workers’ funds have become a major source of capital in the American economy, and as such have been used to help create and/or sustain practices that adversely impinge on workers themselves. It is argued that pension assets have contributed to: 1) the increasing power of financial institutions; 2) growth of corporate profits that only minimally benefit some pension plan participants; 3)capital shortages for 'socially useful’ investments; and 4)support of corporate enterprises that refuse basic worker demands including unionization itself. The study further suggests that the rapidly growing pension assets have the potential to serve‘the public interest’ as well as the needs of workers. Threat of withdrawal of funds from selected money managers and corporations, and utilization of share–holder voting rights to influence corporate policies can be potent weapons for organized labor. Since this is an exploratory analysis, the aim of the article is to gather, present and clarify basic information on worker pension trusts and to propose alternative avenues for future research in this critical area.