The Other Janus and the Future of Labor’s Capital

Two forms of labor’s capital—union funds and public pension funds— have profoundly reshaped the corporate world. They have successfully advocated for shareholder empowerment initiatives like proxy access, declassified boards, majority voting, say on pay, private fund registration, and the CEO-to-worker pay ratio. They have also served as lead plaintiffs in forty percent of federal securities fraud and Delaware deal class actions. Today, much-discussed reforms like revised shareholder proposal rules and mandatory arbitration threaten two of the main channels by which these shareholders have exercised power.

But labor’s capital faces its greatest, even existential, threats from outside corporate law. This Essay addresses one of those threats: the direct and indirect challenges posed to labor’s capital by the Supreme Court’s holding in Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, Council 31. These threats may have spillover effects in the corporate arena. This Essay discusses these developments in light of Randall Thomas’s early and prescient work on labor as a shareholder.