Pension funds, privatization, and the limits to “Workers Capital”

Abstract

In the 1960s and 1970s, some worker activists thought they saw a source of emerging working class power in the growth of North American workers’ pension funds. This paper critically examines what are now called “Workers Capital” strategies for controlling financial investment. It points to the role recently played by Canadian pension funds in the privatization and financialization of public infrastructure to illustrate the structural limits of these strategies, concluding that efforts should be directed to a fight for a full democratization of finance along with universal pension provision.