All workers deserve access to a safe and secure retirement. But neoliberal governments set up a dynamic where the retirement of some is predicated upon the exploitation of many. In the late-1980s, Ontario’s government, financial sector, and labour movement collaborated on a major restructuring of the province’s public sector pensions. The result? The unlocking of a vault containing billions of dollars, suddenly open to be privately invested in capital markets. All this occurred as Ontario’s manufacturing economy got smaller, its care economy got bigger, and its labour movement got weaker.

In Invested in Crisis, Tom Fraser traces the rise of the province’s mega-pension-funds by melding history, geography, and political economy to situate this hike in the context of Ontario’s deindustrialization, the rise of finance, and the global politics of the built environment. Fraser delves deep into the sordid stories of the public sector pension fund investment world: the massive real estate projects, the infrastructure privatization debacles, how unions fight back, and what needs to be done so we can all save for a better future.

Tom Fraser is a union researcher based in Tkaranto/Toronto. With an academic background in labour history, his research focuses narrowly on Ontario’s long-term care sector and more broadly on deindustrial political economy. His writing on labour, pensions, and infrastructure policy has appeared in Jacobin, Canadian Dimension, and The Globe and Mail.

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