Pensions at Work: Socially Responsible Investment of Union-Based Pension Funds, Edited by Jack Quarter, Isla Carmichael and Sherida Ryan, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008, 291 pp., ISBN 978-0-802093-10-3.

This volume provides an investigation of the connections between unions and pension's governance. The book derives from a research alliance funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Despite the fact that material dealt with in the book is a cluster of different projects, the work provides an interesting network to deal with social issues. In this case, worker's capital as the indirect owners of capital is an important feature of financial capitalism. In the current situation of financial crises and interrogations about how to find new forms of regulation in the financial circulation, the issue of worker's capital is far from being negligible. Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) of Union Based Pension Funds is defined as “the inclusion of social standards in investment decisions” and a way to “challenge conventional corporate behaviour and improve society” (p. 20). SRI is the kind of expression which conveys different meanings depending on the context in which it is used. It may be synonymous with ethical investment in the context of corporate behaviour. It may be synonymous with “alternative” investment in the context of portfolio management. It may be synonymous with positive externalities in the context of global and social accounting. It may be synonymous with “empowerment” in the context of education of workers involved in the governance of pension funds. The purpose of SRI is to incorporate non financial criteria inside the classical approach to funds' portfolio management. Three forms of SRI are described in the book: investment screening, shareholder action and corporate engagement, and economically targeted investment. The objective of SRI is probably an aspect of the book which should be discussed in detail, because, as the current financial crises vividly illustrates, it is not as simple as it seems, that the accumulation of funds from indirect source of workers' compensation should be financially managed, even with the incorporation of nonfinancial criteria. The discussion about the different forms of SRI should be made in-situ, by presenting the different actors of the pension's industry, and by discussing the role of the public actors inside the industry because the boundary between public and private management of funds are far from being clearly established. The first three chapters of the book present the issue of fiduciary responsibility inside the regulatory framework of pension funds. Chapter one addresses “the changing role of unions in relation to pension fund investment” (p. 3). The change from a passive attitude to a greater control of investments began in the mid-eighties, in a context of growing public sector's pension assets, an enhanced emphasis on financial management of them, and large potential injury for employment and wages. Chapter two is based on a survey of labour trustees about the stages of trustee's development. The main argument is that “most unions have yet to articulate a comprehensive and proactive policy on their potential role in pension-fund governance” (p. 43). Chapter three is an analysis of the legal boundaries of pension-plan investment policy and argues “that the traditional interpretation of the law has been unnecessarily rigid and narrow, especially in the light of rapid changes in investment practice” (p. 70). The author develops a very convincing argument to show that legal decisions about fiduciary duties should not be referred to outside their specific context, and that the several sources of the legal boundaries are not as coherent as they are usually explain by managers of pension plans. The next two chapters of the book deal with the economic and social dimensions of SRI in social screening. Chapter 4 explores SRI content through “the relationship between human capital performance and …