New Union Plus Book Club Announces First Selection
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Our friends at Union Plus have just launched the Union Plus Book Club that will delve into the latest publications by leading experts on vital working family and workplace issues. The books will be available at the AFL-CIO’s The Union Shop OnlineTM and chosen every two months by union leaders based on their interest and expertise in a subject.
The club’s first selection, from AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, is Up From Wall Street: The Responsible Investment Alternative, by Thomas Croft.
In the forward to the book, Trumka writes that Croft ”uses real life stories” to show how
responsibly investing savings assets, pensions, insurance funds and other trusts can generate positive social, economic and environmental benefits, while bringing solid financial returns.
Up From Wall Street, lays out high-road alternatives to the reckless loans and dicey short-term bets that have savaged the economy and ravaged working people’s savings and pension funds.
The book makes a strong case that there are strategic and union-friendly investment paths that have the capacity to rebuild our economy and infrastructure, reinvigorate our cities, and finance a clean energy economy that creates and retains good jobs.
The Union Plus Book Club’s goal is to “create labor movement dialogue about current issues and to inspire thought-provoking conversations within our union community.”
Responsible Investing = Profit and Jobs
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Global union pension funds and investments are worth $17 trillion and are a major force in the global capital markets. But often those funds are run by Wall Street managers who invest workers’ money in ways that actually destroy jobs.
Thomas Croft, executive director of the Pittsburgh-based Steel Valley Authority, which helps companies in crisis on workplace retention, growth and buyout strategies, says in a new AFL-CIO Point of View guest column that union pension funds can create jobs and profits by investing their assets in responsible projects that respect workers.
In his new book, Up From Wall Street: The Responsible Investment Alternative, Croft says he has found “worker-friendly” investors who have earned significant profits for the funds they manage. Increasingly, they are investing in green jobs.
