Workers to Wall Street: Don’t Destroy Social Security
From AFL-CIO
From New York to San Francisco, New Hampshire to San Antonio, thousands of working families and community activists carried signs proclaiming “Don’t Pick Our Pockets To Line Yours,” as they rallied in more than 70 cities at the offices of Wall Street firms demanding Charles Schwab Corp., Wachovia Corp. and others stop pushing the privatization of Social Security.
“I believe I speak for the majority of American workers when I say, ‘Mr. Bush, leave my Social Security alone!’” said Reda Johnson, a member of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1546 who rallied at a Charles Schwab office in Chicago. “Don’t give my Social Security benefits away to your friends on Wall Street. I’ve worked hard for that money for years, and when I’m ready to retire I want it back!” The union movement’s March 31 National Day of Action for Retirement Security is the largest grassroots mobilization yet in the working families’ campaign to defeat President George W. Bush’s plan to privatize Social Security. “It’s not right for corporations such as Wachovia to advise the public and the government over something that they will make a profit on,” said Joe Turner, a retired member of the Machinists who marched in front of the bank’s headquarters in Charlotte, N.C.
AFL-CIO President John Sweeney Delivers Message Directly to Schwab, Wachovia
“American voters know privatization is a flim-flam scheme—they already know that privatization means steep benefit cuts, an exploding deficit, huge bills for our children and grandchildren and more corruption on Wall Street,” AFL-CIO President John Sweeney told a crowd of hundreds of activists rallying today at a Charles Schwab office and across the street from Wachovia in Washington, D.C. Together with a delegation of activists, Sweeney entered the offices of Charles Schwab and Wachovia to deliver letters to Charles Schwab, chairman and CEO of the company that bears his name, and to Daniel Ludeman, president and CEO of Wachovia Securities, LLC, demanding they stop supporting Social Security privatization at the expense of working families. Ludeman also is chairman of the board of the Securities Industry Association, a key proponent of Social Security privatization, which represents investment banks, broker-dealers and mutual fund companies. “Social Security is not in crisis, but its opponents are attempting to fabricate a crisis to destroy what most of America wants to preserve,” Sweeney wrote to Ludeman. “The financial industry should not be backing an initiative that would shred the protections that Social Security provides for retirement, disability and loss of a wage earner.” AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka and AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Linda Chavez-Thompson joined hundreds of activists in Philadelphia and San Antonio, respectively, for the National Day of Action.
Privatizing Social Security Would Cut Benefits by as Much as $152,000
Working family activists are pressing lawmakers to stop Bush’s plans and campaigning to educate the public about the dangers of privatizing Social Security. The Bush plan would slash guaranteed benefits for today’s young workers by as much as $152,000, even for recipients who did not choose private accounts, and saddle our children with $4.9 trillion in new debt, mostly owed to foreign countries, over the first 20 years alone. The plan also would worsen Social Security’s financing problems: Under Bush’s privatization plan, Social Security would run out of surplus revenues in 2030, 11 years earlier than now projected. Financial firms, including those supporting Social Security privatization, stand to gain billions of dollars in fees from managing privatized Social Security accounts while working families would be hit with cuts in guaranteed Social Security and greater debt. University of Chicago economist Austan Goolsbee estimates such companies as Charles Schwab and Wachovia could reap some $940 billion in fees over the next 75 years.
Other Firms Withdraw Support for Privatization After Worker Protests
Many financial firms are members of pro-privatization lobbying groups such as the Alliance for Worker Retirement Security (AWRS). Workers’ and investors’ grassroots protests of the firms’ conflicts of interest have prompted several to drop out of those organizations. “The Alliance for Worker Retirement Security is a pretty name, but we’ve seen a lot of pretty names that don’t mean a thing,” Turner says. “I doubt there’s any retired workers in there and they sure aren’t worried about my security.” In early March, after working families focused on the Financial Services Forum, a coalition of 19 CEOs of large financial firms, the group pulled out of one of the leading pro-privatization organizations, the Coalition for Modernization and Protection of America’s Social Security. In February, Edward Jones, which operates some 9,000 offices around the nation, dropped out of AWRS after a series of community actions at many of its offices. Shortly before grassroots mobilizations aimed at investment firm Waddell & Reed were set to take place in March, the company announced it was leaving AWRS.
