Document Type
Conference Proceeding
Publication Date
6-2024
ISSN
0009-3599
Publisher
Chicago-Kent College of Law
Language
en-US
Abstract
ALVIN VELAZQUEZ: Good afternoon! My name is Alvin Velazquez. I am an Associate General Counsel at the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), where for the last fifteen years I have given advice on bankruptcy, corporate law matters, and tech matters. I’m also an adjunct professor at Georgetown Law School where I have taught employment law and am teaching a seminar called Systemic Racism, Colonialism, and Bankrupt Governments.1 Before arriving at SEIU I worked as a litigation associate at several large law firms. I also admit, rather sheepishly, that I am one of the few graduates of Cornell in the labor movement who did not attend the Industrial and Labor Relations school, but rather am a product of its government department who then attended Harvard Law School. I want to thank Claire Hill for organizing this excellent symposium and inviting me here to conduct this interview.
I am really excited to be joined by David Webber, the author of The Rise of the Working-Class Shareholder: Labor’s Last Best Weapon. David Webber is a familiar name in the corporate governance world, and among labor practitioners of capital stewardship due to his prolific scholarship examining labor and its capital. He is a professor and Paul M. Siskind Scholar at Boston University, and one of the best thinkers out there concerning the interaction of how labor unions have engaged and incorporated corporate governance into their thinking. His book has received reviews or otherwise been covered in the New York Review of Books, the Financial Times, Forbes, Dissent, the National Review, C-SPAN’s BookTV, Bloomberg Radio, Publishers Weekly, the Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation, the Harvard OnLabor Blog, and elsewhere. It has also been the subject of op-eds for the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and the Washington Post. Finally, his book is assigned as part of the core curriculum for the Harvard Trade Union Program. David did his undergraduate work at Columbia University and obtained his law degree at N.Y.U. Law where he was a member of its law review.
Even though I had nothing to do with it being part of the core curriculum for the Harvard Trade Union Program, I recommend his book because it tells a sweeping story of where labor’s use of capital has been, and provides some important suggestions for where labor’s capital should be going. It is highly accessible to labor practitioners, finance practitioners, and legal audiences. On a personal note, let me just say that reading your book felt like a trip down memory lane for me. You really described what was going on in the labor capital stewardship space over the course of my career in a way that I had not conceived of previously. When you are doing the work on a day-today basis it is difficult to reflect. A lot of the time you are just trying to get things done. However, your book really helped me reflect on how far the conversation concerning labor’s role has changed since I started doing this work in 2008. It also provided me with some new ways of discussing the work that I do with our members.
Let’s get started with some general questions to kick off our interview. Can you tell us what motivated you to write the book?
Recommended Citation
Alvin Velazquez & David H. Webber,
Interview with David Webber: Reflections on the Past, Present, and Future of Labor's Capital
,
99
Chicago-Kent Law Review
251
(2024).
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.bu.edu/faculty_scholarship/4030
