Nathan Newman wrote:
>To be fair, shareholder litigation is a major tool by unions and others to
>mess with management and extract concessions in other areas-- all part of
>corporate campaigns.
-Which, I'm told by people who used to work on them, mare pretty -ineffective. Not corp camp, but the shareholder activist component.
Effective in terms of what? Winning resolutions? No. But what corporate campaigns do is simple- they take companies they have a union fight with, then identify whatever enemies those company managements have and then support those opponents. By teaming up with shareholders who have legitimate economic beefs with management, they threaten those managers' jobs and income. Add those fights to environmental challenges, zoning challenges and every other kind of beef, company management will often tire of fighting so many battles with the union on so many fronts over the specific economic terms of the contract.
Essentially, unions use the threat of litigation costs as leverage to make their economic demands look less costly to settle. Conservatives scream bloody murder over these tactics and have repeatedly tried to use RICO and other weapons to stop it - so far unsuccessfully.
>Big capitalists don't need lawsuits to enforce their power-- they have the
>cash to do it.
-Are you kidding? Shareholder litigation is a major business.
It's a major business for law firms, the dreaded trial lawyers, but that is separate from the interests of the companies and large capitalists themselves.
-- Nathan Newman