Whoever Owns, Rules: Taking on Corporate Ownership & Structure

To challenge the power of capital, we must know what it is and how it works. This session introduces the various forms of corporate ownership and structure, explaining who owns the wealth of the world and how they own it. Forms of ownership include privately held companies, publicly traded companies, private equity, hedge funds, venture capital, and real estate investment trusts, among others, and they are all continuously evolving. Intriguingly, workers and their unions are intimately involved in corporate ownership, and this creates opportunities and challenges for confronting the power of capital. What are some of the “capital strategies” that workers and unions employ to organize new workers, bargain for better wages and benefits, and curb corporate abuses? Where do the relationships between firms and their owners create openings or shut the door for workers and unions? This session will try to answer those questions, and more. It is pitched at a level for both early-career and experienced researchers, but it draws on concepts of corporate finance. Therefore, students unfamiliar with financial analysis may find it helpful to take Financial Analysis Parts I and 2 earlier in the conference.

Aaron Brenner is a senior capital markets analyst at the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union. He does research and organizing for the UFCW’s capital stewardship department. His work includes comprehensive organizing campaigns, shareholder activism, retirement security, and financial advising to locals. Prior to UFCW, he was a union researcher, freelance financial analyst, professor, and journalist. He is on the board of Homeland Stores, an employee-owned, 80-store unionized grocery chain based in Oklahoma. He holds a PhD in labor history from Columbia University.