The American Federation of Teachers just launched a campaign to boycott Target — a company teachers’ pension funds own billions of dollars worth of stock in.
Randi Weingarten, the politically connected president of the AFT, released a video this weekend urging parents and students to skip Target for back-to-school shopping. The reason? Target refused to condemn ICE enforcement actions.
According to an AFT press release, the union created the campaign “in response to Target’s refusal to condemn the unlawful Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity that continues to roil communities around the country.”
Weingarten complained Target had “ample time to stand with the communities” but its “silence about federal immigration abuses has been deafening.”
The AFT is angry at Target because the company didn’t make the union’s political fight their fight. So now the union is actively trying to damage the company — a company teachers themselves own.
“The California State Teachers Retirement System (CalSTRS) directly held three-quarters of a million shares of Target Corporation, worth more than $100 million.”
CalSTRS is the largest teachers-only public pension system in the country, with more than $400 billion in assets under management. As of December 31, 2024, CalSTRS directly held 750,000 shares of Target — worth more than $100 million.
Add in the Teacher Retirement System of Texas and the New York State Teachers’ Retirement System, and the total value jumps by another $60-plus million. Add in the remaining state teacher retirement systems plus city systems in Chicago, Denver, Kansas City, New York City, St. Louis, and St. Paul, and teacher pensions directly hold well into the multiple hundreds of millions in Target stock.
That doesn’t even count indirect shares held through index funds and ETFs. Teacher retirement plans hold literally billions of dollars’ worth of Target stock.
Target’s long-term success is directly linked to American teachers’ retirement security. Yet the teachers’ union is purposefully trying to harm the company.
The irony runs deeper. One of the signatories of the 2019 Business Roundtable statement redefining corporate purpose away from shareholders was Brian Cornell — then CEO of Target. That statement, signed by 181 CEOs including Jamie Dimon and Larry Fink, declared corporations should focus less on shareholders and more on stakeholders.
Cornell and the other CEOs who signed that document are responsible for encouraging people like Weingarten to think of Target as a tool to accomplish her political goals.
Target has a long history of getting involved in social-justice causes beyond its business purview. The company has a well-earned reputation as a social-justice-compliant corporation — which is probably why Weingarten is so upset it resisted her demands.
The lesson: once you decide to ride the social-justice wave, it’s nearly impossible to bail before wiping out.
Weingarten herself is almost certainly a part-owner of Target through her own pension. She is damaging her own retirement returns. As president of a teachers’ union, she has tremendous influence over pension fiduciaries. The AFT’s Trustee Council has more than 50 members on 27 different pension boards.
Weingarten has harnessed the power of her union to fight against a company teachers are all part-owners of.
That is the very definition of self-defeating.
Publicly traded corporations like Target are owned by their shareholders — the overwhelming majority of whom are ordinary folks like teachers trying to save for retirement. Public pension plans, 401(k)s, and IRAs are the primary savings vehicles for most investors.
The perception of investors as Wall Street fat cats is largely a myth. You, your spouse, your kids, your parents — ordinary Americans are the majority of investors and owners of most corporations.
No one seems to remember what corporations actually are: the collected savings of tens of millions of ordinary people.
