A New Look at Labor Day

A day to reflect on the accomplishments of working people: Thats been the proud tradition since the first, unofficial, Labor Day back in 1882.

But, one of labors greatest accomplishments has gone largely unrecognized. Since the end of World War II, working people have bought up a huge chunk of big business. They now own a piece of just about everything in business, from multinational corporations to small companies that build mini-malls in their neighborhoods.

It may be the greatest economic transformation since the Industrial Revolution; management guru Peter Drucker calls it "The Pension Fund Revolution."

To get a sense of the transformation, consider this: At the end of 2001, Americas 242 billionaires had assets totalling about $800 billion. Thats a sizable amount, certainly, but working people had assets of $11.8 trillion in pension and mutual funds. Thats almost 15 times as much as the billionaires.

Most working people contribute only modest amounts to their retirement plans, but there are simply so many of us that our collective nest egg grew very quickly. If youre still not sure, try this on your calculator: Multiply a contribution of $1,000 per year by one million working people. Answer: $1 billion dollars per year. Now note there are hundreds of millions of working people here and in other countries. And were contributing new money every year.

Even a relatively small number of working people can build a big fund. For example, the New York State Common Retirement Fund, with 944,000 members in or retired from state public services, had assets of $112 billion at the end of March last year. According to the Funds annual report for 2002, about $76.6 billion of that total was invested in companies. The remainder, about $35 billion, was in bonds, mortgages, and other types of loans.

Look at the private sector and unions, too. To cite just a couple of examples, Pensions & Investments magazine estimated that General Motors pension fund had assets of $82.5 billion and the pension fund of the Western Conference Teamsters had assets of $22.6 billion, at September 30, 2001.

This ownership of big business by working people is the result of contributions to pension funds, mutual funds, and life insurance policies with a savings component.

What does all this mean Well, for starters, perhaps an end of complaints about the profits of corporations. After all, most of those profits go toward the retirement incomes of working people.

More complicated, though, is the relationship between working people who own a big company and other working people employed by it. How to share corporate profits -- through continuing employment and higher wages, or through higher returns to shareholders -- remains a difficult issue. Especially for those working people who lose their jobs.

On the other side of the coin, working people have bought enough stocks and shares to become the bosses of the bosses. Some pension funds have begun making that clear; CalPERS, the California Public Employees Retirement System, has led the way in telling Chief Executive Officers CEOs and boards of directors that theyd better manage effectively. And, CEOs and directors listen; after all CalPERS runs the countrys biggest pension fund, with assets of more than $130 billion.

One other thing: if youre a working person, youre a consumer, as well as an owner and employee. When you go shopping, theres a chance youll buy from a business owned by yourself, your friends, or your neighbors. Whats more, the clerks who take your credit card with smiles may work for you. Or, maybe the clerks own the company for which you work. Smile at them, too, just to be on the safe side!