Financial Firm Waddell & Reed Withdraws From Pro-Privatization Lobby Group
Workers, union leaders and community activists are stepping up their challenge to Wall Street involvement in the campaign to privatize Social Security, which would result in deep cuts in guaranteed benefits for retirees and a $5 trillion increase in the federal deficit over the next 20 years. Rallies targeting financial firms were held today in Hartford, Connecticut and Overland Park, Kansas. AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka led the rally in Hartford, the insurance capital of the world, and challenged the insurance industry to clarify its stance on Social Security privatization. Trumka wrote separately to 12 leading insurance companies asking them to disavow support for privatization and to disclose any support for groups promoting privatization of Social Security.
“Insurance companies would be huge winners under privatized Social Security because of the likely inclusion of annuities,” said Trumka. “The public deserves to know whether insurance companies that would benefit from privatization are actively promoting this dangerous scheme.”
Insurance companies including Cigna, MetLife and Prudential have either contributed to or participated in groups that endorse privatization.
The rally in Overland Park, Kansas outside investment firm Waddell & Reed’s headquarters was originally slated as a protest of the firm’s membership in the pro-privatization lobby group, the Alliance for Worker Retirement Security (AWRS). Instead, union leaders and workers commended Waddell & Reed’s announcement that it has withdrawn from the AWRS and the campaign to privatize Social Security. A third event in Baton Rouge, LA, on Wednesday will target the Charles Schwab Corporation.
Waddell & Reed’s withdrawal from the AWRS follows a similar move by rival firm Edward Jones & Co. following protests by labor and community organizations.
“Working families are putting financial firms on notice,” said AFL-CIO President John Sweeney. “They will not allow firms that handle their savings to promote a scheme that will put their hard-earned money at risk.”
A National Day of Action will be held on March 31 targeting Charles Schwab and other financial firms with ties to pro-privatization forces. The Day of Action will include demonstrations at dozens of Schwab offices around the country, and a new online campaign to notify current and potential Schwab clients of the firm’s involvement in the push to privatize Social Security.
The AFL-CIO will intensify its focus on the member firms of the Securities Industry Association and the Financial Services Forum to take responsibility for those associations’ involvement in pro-privatization groups. The AFL-CIO will release on its website, wallstreetgreed.org, questions for individual and institutional investors to ask the 28 firms – including industry giants such as Fidelity Investments, Merrill Lynch and UBS – comprising the leadership of the two financial industry groups. Both the Forum and the SIA have been part of pro-privatization groups, even while their leading members publicly deny having a stake in the issue.
Contact Suzanne Ffolkes 202-637-5018
