Today I asked a electrical workers' union member, who's actively involved in a local chapter of a national socialist party, why his union didn't pay more attention to what its pension fund was doing and think more about what it could be doing.  He responded:

I know we own a big chunk of blue cross.  But they haven't done shit for us.  Our benefits keep getting worse.   Our pension fund managers don't do shit and then the union bureaucracy.  And then we also own a big chunk of the philly inquirer -- brilliant investment, that, in this internet age.

Two points here.  One: American unions don't pay enough attention to a source of power and leverage they already have -- the tens of billions of dollars of corporate equity they own.  This could be made even more powerful if there's a movement to get rid of the part of taft-hartley that lets corporate execs have a hand in fund management.

Two: How to handle the perverse incentive of owning a company and wanting to make a profit from it --- while still staying true to labor reform?  Making profits as a shareholder, after all, can mean cuts to wages and benefits.