Posts tagged ESG
A History of Everything Leftist Unionism: The Old Left and the Reds
March 10, 2025 // American labor radicalism has come a long way from Soviet agents in the Congress of Industrial Organizations through the UAW-funded Students for a Democratic Society to today’s SEIU purple-shirted demonstrators and red-shirted UAW anti-anti-Hamasniks. As Big Labor has declined, what independence the labor movement had from the progressive Left has diminished to the point where, with rare divergences, it effectively has ceased to exist. The causes of the Long Decline are many, and the causes of Big Labor’s leftism are also many, ranging from financial incentive structures of union officials to the structure of collective bargaining. Today, organized labor is a full member of the Everything Leftist coalition, not just in economic issues and labor organizing but also in social and foreign policy.
Competitive Enterprise Institute Opinion: Time to End the ESG Shakedown
January 21, 2025 // Any agency that is not charged by Congress with pursuing those specific goals should not have staffers assigned to those goals. The Environmental Protection Agency is the place for climate policy; the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is the place for workplace discrimination claims. The executive branch does not need an infinite regress of staff, in each agency, assigned to advance every progressive policy priority under the sun. New leaders at the independent agencies, such as the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Trade Commission, will receive less direct instruction from the new president. Still, they will have broad discretion to set the agenda at their respective agencies for enforcement, future rulemakings, and repeals. SEC chairman-designate Paul Atkins, for example, will have the ability to fully reverse the pro-ESG mission creep seen over the last four years. He can, instead, focus the SEC on such charmingly old-fashioned goals as encouraging capital formation and new investment opportunities rather than micromanaging the board decisions of every public company in America.
EXCLUSIVE: Bill Cassidy To Introduce Bill To Stop Left-Wing Investing From Taking Over Retirement Funds
September 27, 2024 // “Asset managers should prioritize helping Americans achieve the best return for their retirement, not funneling their clients’ money to fund a left-wing political ideology,” Cassidy, who serves as the ranking member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee, said. “This legislation protects 152 million Americans who depend on a strong retirement to live after their career is over.” Under current Department of Labor rules, administrators of employee retirement plans are allowed to consider ESG factors when choosing between investment opportunities they have determined to be of equivalent quality. If a retirement fund determines multiple investment options are of equal value under Cassidy’s bill, it must document how it made that determination and then choose at random between the options.
Hard labor No, American conservatism shouldn’t move leftward on unions
July 30, 2024 // “The Teamsters recently stated the ‘S’ in ESG is ‘a critically important tool for advancing worker interests in the 21st century,’” he wrote. “Similarly, the AFL-CIO has said ESG investing ‘advance[s] the causes of working people.’” The “end game is to give unions more power,” Vernuccio concluded. “Yet while unions win, workers lose — and so do the investors whose money is being used for political purposes.”
Republican challenge to ESG investing rule could showcase risk to US agency powers
July 10, 2024 // The high court did just that in a June ruling in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, saying judges instead should exercise their independent judgment in evaluating agency rules. That decision is expected to have a widespread impact on the government's ability to adopt new rules such as environmental, securities and labor regulations, and is part of a broader effort by conservative groups to rein in the powers of what they call "the administrative state."
Has Pushback to Full of ‘S’ Labor Unions Finally Arrived?
June 10, 2024 // Written by I4AW’s Sam Adolphsen and F. Vincent Vernuccio, the study warns that the initial “Environmental” focus of ESG is being supplanted by labor leaders, who are focusing on the leftist acronym’s “social” component in order to intimidate companies and force membership growth: With help from the whole of Biden’s big government, Big Labor is replicating the ESG strategies used by environmentalists and other activists. These groups aim to cajole fossil fuel-producing companies and other businesses they consider socially unacceptable into abandoning profitable business ventures. The tactics of the Big Labor plan call for hijacking the shareholder resolution process through proxy voting and shareholder activism to force pro-union policies. Unlike typical shareholder proposals, those supported by Big Labor do not seek to advance shareholder value. Instead, they seek to increase union membership and strengthen Big Labor’s power.
InfluenceWatch Podcast #314: ESG’s Labor Angle
April 29, 2024 // I’m fond of saying—it’s in my Twitter bio—that “there’s always a labor angle.” From bad MLB umpiring to anti-anti-Hamas demonstrations, Big Labor is there. So I am the least surprised person to discover that the left-wing environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) activist investing movement is backstopped in part by and operates in service of Big Labor and its Everything Leftist agenda. Joining me and my colleague Robert Stilson, who studies the ESG movement for Capital Research Center, is Vinnie Vernuccio of the Institute for the American Worker.
NY Post: Unions are Using ESG to Control Workers
April 11, 2024 // Op-ed: Unions are Using ESG to Control Workers- and Drain Americans’ Retirement Savings Published in the New York Post March 21, 2024 by F. Vincent Vernuccio and Sam Adolphsen ESG has claimed its latest victims: Starbucks workers. In the days leading up to the company’s annual meeting…
Unions using ESG to control workers — and drain Americans’ retirement savings
March 21, 2024 // They’re pushing board nominees and shareholder proposals that aim to force more workers into union membership, even when workers don’t want it. The Biden administration has smoothed the path for this underhanded strategy, and not only does it threaten workers, it endangers millions of Americans’ retirement savings. A new Institute for the American Worker report shines a light on labor unions’ reliance on ESG.
REPORT: Big Labor’s Push to Force Investment Managers to Ignore Fiduciary Duty and Promote Unions
March 21, 2024 // Click here to download the report. REPORT: “The Next President Will Face an Emerging ESG Threat; Big Labor’s Push to Force Investment Managers and Publicly Traded Companies to Ignore Fiduciary Duty and Promote Unions” by Sam Adolphsen and F. Vincent Vernuccio President Biden…