(The AFL-CIO issued the following news release on March 31.)
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, were turning 70 different towns into union cities with rallies and marches to stop the risky scheme to privatize Social Security, and I want to thank Jobs With Justice and the Alliance for Retired Americans for joining with us to make it happen. We are in Boston and New York and Los Angeles and Chicago. We are workers from many different unions; older Americans as well as students; concerned citizens and progressive allies. But our message is the same to Charles Schwab and Wachovia Corporation and all the other Wall Street investment firms.
Our message is this: Dont try to pick our pockets so you can line yours.
Schwab and Wachovia and the rest of Wall Street are major backers of the Bush plan to privatize Social Security, because they stand to rip-off more than $1 trillion dollars in management fees. Thats not just an ordinary conflict of interest, it ranks right up there with the greediest Wall Street scandals of all times and were demanding they stop supporting the phony coalitions backing privatization.
With money provided by these firms all of whom are already making millions off the pension funds of working Americans the White House is financing a giant propaganda campaign to convince voters to support privatization. But 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.
We want Schwab and Wachovia and Wall Street to know they wont get away with it this is the biggest mobilization in our history, and were going to put private accounts right where they belong in the dumpster of our democracy!
Thank you. God bless you and your families, and God bless America.