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Happy International Workers’ Day! Today I’m honoring working class heroes and the labor union wins all around us. For example, the fact that hourly employees must be paid overtime wages after a forty-hour work week, which is direct result of financial activism by 1930s labor activists claiming hard-won victory against corporate powers (who were, indeed, quite content working employees out of limbs.) I’m also honoring student activists across the US, and what they’re teaching us about financial activism. Look — divestment is rarely easy. In fact, like much of our financial system, the process of even understanding investment portfolios, and then making changes to said portfolios, is too often convoluted and opaque by design. It’s a process only a select few are expected to have the language for (Index funds? Private equity?) and therefore have the power to influence. So to call for institutional divestment is to accept a level of messiness and pushback, even from those who may agree with the underlying call for justice. So, knowing the complex realities of investment portfolios — are divestment campaigns worth it? Are they “strategic?” In a word: yes. In four more words: we are witnessing history. If you feel so inclined, you can read why I feel this here.
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