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Private Equity and American Labor: Multiple, Pragmatic Responses Mirroring Labor’s Strengths and Weaknesses

Harvard Law School, USA, lwb{at}law.harvard.edu

This article briefly describes the recent growth of private equity, details some of the challenges such growth has posed for American labor, and outlines ways in which labor has chosen to respond. In so doing it suggests that the diverse, complicated, and practical choices labor has made to date have been shaped by the particular strengths and weaknesses of its position in American society. More particularly, these choices place the emphasis on (1) legislative change, relating mainly to tax rather than regulatory policy (labor-related or otherwise); (2) capital strategies, by which unions and pension funds engage companies in connection with corporate governance and investments that might be made in or withheld from them; and (3) high-profile campaigns relating to the reputation of private equity firms and their investee companies (as compared to traditional means of securing union recognition or exercising collective bargaining rights).

Key Words: capital stewardship • capital strategy • collective bargaining • investment • labor • pension fund • private equity

Journal of Industrial Relations, Vol. 51, No. 4, 543-556 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/0022185609339518


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