CalPERS Alerts State Pensions About “Pension Fight Club” Documentary
By Edward Siedle
If you’re a participant in a state pension, there’s a full-length documentary about public pensions that state officials and their Wall Street allies do not want you to see.
Pension Fight Club, produced and directed by independent filmmaker Douglas Orchard, is a groundbreaking investigative documentary about the enormous yet largely unseen world of America’s public pensions. These funds manage approximately $6.5 trillion in retirement savings on behalf of more than 12 million government workers, retirees and beneficiaries. Despite their public mission—and the financial security of millions depending upon them—their most consequential investment decisions are often shielded from meaningful scrutiny.
The film follows a politically diverse group of pension trustees, teachers, retirees, union representatives, state officials, whistleblowers and reform advocates as they challenge an increasingly opaque system. Coming from red, blue and purple states, they describe a remarkably consistent pattern: Public funds have shifted vast sums into costly and complex alternative investments, including private equity, private credit and hedge funds, while the contracts, fees, risks and performance underlying those investments have become increasingly difficult—even for pension fiduciaries—to examine.
Through firsthand accounts, Pension Fight Club explores how secrecy can conceal excessive or incompletely reported fees, questionable investment practices, conflicts of interest and chronic underperformance. Trustees recount being denied access to agreements governing investments they are legally responsible for overseeing. Teachers and retirees describe benefit reductions and the loss of cost-of-living protections, even as Wall Street firms receive billions of dollars for managing public retirement assets. Whistleblowers and reformers tell of litigation, political attacks and well-funded campaigns directed against those who demand greater transparency.
At its center, the film asks a simple but urgent question: Who is protecting the retirement savings of public workers when those charged with oversight cannot obtain the information necessary to fulfill their fiduciary duties?
Pension Fight Club will be sweeping through Ohio beginning Friday, September 11th, at the AMC Easton Town Center Theatre, Columbus, Ohio. (Claim your free ticket.)
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