IUF Offers ‘Workers’ Guide to Private Equity’

With private equity funds in 2006 going on unprecedented buying sprees totaling US$725 billion, the International Union of Food and Agricultural Workers (IUF) has published a 36-page booklet entitled “Workers’ Guide to Private Equity.”

The booklet is aimed at trade unions and their members, and highlights the threat of private equity companies when they take over companies. The IUF says the heavy debt loads that companies often carry following such buy-outs means they pay less in taxes, thus creating a more increased tax burden for individuals and small businesses.

The IUF also says cost-slashing following takeovers by private equity funds means that research and development budgets of major companies are cut, so new product innovations go by the wayside. The sole corporate investment strategy by such funds is maximum short-term financial returns to shareholders.

“Workers’ Guide to Private Equity” includes chapters on the Impact to Unions and Undercutting the Public Interest. It also contains two “Trade Union Action” programmes, one on the “organising challenge,” the other entitled “mobilising and intervening for re-registration.” The booklet, in its appendix, lists the top 50 private equity buy-out funds. It also contains an IUF Public Equity Buyout Watch.

A PDF version of the booklet can be viewed here.  The IUF is selling the booklet for CHF 5 each (plus postage), or for CHF 3 (plus postage) each for bulk copies of ten or more.

The IUF also has a part of its web-site decidated to the private equity problem: http://www.iuf.org/buyoutwatch.