Pension fund management: a trade union commitment to greater corporate social responsibility

Henri Lourdelle
Additional contact information
Henri Lourdelle: Trade unionist of French origin. Adviser in the Secretariat of the European Trade Union Confederation, Brussels, responsible for social protection at European level and for pensions in particular. Vice-chairman of the Pensions Forum, an advisory body set up by the European Commission to deal especially with supplementary pensions and mobility issues.

Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research, 2004, vol. 10, issue 3, 452-467

Abstract: Corporate social responsibility (CSR), in association with sustainable development, has become a live issue over the past few years. Should companies be allowed to do whatever they like in the name of competitiveness, even at the risk of compromising the future of the planet? What means does the trade union movement currently have at its disposal to influence corporate conduct in the direction of sustainable development and social responsibility? Over and above traditional trade union activities, the unions have available to them a tool, namely the funds which they manage – or jointly manage – in connection with occupational pension or employee savings schemes. By having their say in the investment strategies of these funds, trade unions can make decisions that affect corporate conduct. This is what is now known as socially responsible investment (SRI). This article sets out to explore the issue, demonstrating how we have moved on from what was initially a moral, ethical approach, geared mainly towards ‘exclusion', to a more incentive-based approach seeking to encourage companies whose conduct is more ‘responsible'. In other words, we shall show that occupational pension funds can in fact become a new weapon in the trade union armoury.

Date: 2004
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/102425890401000310 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:treure:v:10:y:2004:i:3:p:452-467

DOI: 10.1177/102425890401000310

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().