Labor unions and shareholder activism: Union and firm characteristics in determining shareholder activism, resolution outcomes, and firm targets among labor union pension funds

Abstract

This dissertation examines the role of labor unions, via their pension funds, as shareholder activists in corporate America. For decades unions have struggled to regain their strength as representatives of the American worker, and since the turn of the 21st century they have found a creative new way of doing so. Historically, unions have limited the way that they represent workers to the point of production, as bargaining agents. However, by leveraging their positions as shareholders through their pension funds, labor unions have recently emerged as the second-largest shareholder activist group in corporate America. This presents labor unions with a dilemma, in which they serve as both the bargaining agents on behalf of workers in the workplace, as well as the fiscal agents on behalf of many of those same workers through their pension funds. This dilemma, which I refer to as the “dual-agency problem” of labor unions is discussed throughout this dissertation. Each essay of this dissertation explores a different perspective of labor union shareholder activism; the first at the union level of analysis, the second at the resolution level of analysis, and the third at the firm unit of analysis.