We’re on a roll. Thanks to activists like you, Wall Street investment groups are ducking for cover and disavowing Social Security privatization.

Now it’s time for the giant Charles Schwab firm to come clean and put working people’s interests ahead of potential private account profits, too.

Yesterday the Financial Services Forum, made up of CEOs of big finance companies, dropped out of Compass, the group leading financial industry support for President Bush’s plan to privatize Social Security. Last week, as working family activists prepared to demonstrate outside its Kansas office, the investment firm of Waddell & Reed announced it left the pro-privatization Alliance for Worker Retirement Security. “The firm has a history of listening to its clients and being sympathetic and supportive of their issues. Please accept our withdrawal as such proof,” John Sundeen Jr., the company's executive vice president, wrote to the AFL-CIO.

But Charles Schwab has refused to budge. Please take a minute now to tell Charles Schwab to end its support of Social Security privatization. Click here:

www.unionvoice.org/campaign/schwab_action

Investment firms have gotten the message that working people—including their clients—would be hurt by Social Security privatization because it would slash guaranteed benefits, explode the deficit, open Social Security up to corruption and make our retirement security problems worse. The Edward Jones investment firm pulled out of the Alliance for Worker Retirement Security previously, following protests and e-mails from activists like you.

But Charles Schwab is holding firm. Although privatization would slash clients’ guaranteed benefits, Wall Street firms like Schwab “could reap billions of dollars in management fees and commissions over the long term” if Social Security is privatized, according to the Jan. 18 Los Angeles Times. That’s a clear conflict of interest.

Tell Charles Schwab: If your competitors can do it, so can you. Don’t support Social Security privatization. Resign from the front groups pushing privatization. Click here:

www.unionvoice.org/campaign/schwab_action

Thank you for working for working families.

In solidarity,

Working Families e-Activist Network
March 15, 2005

P.S. GET READY: March 31 will be a National Day of Action to convince Charles Schwab and other financial firms to cut their ties to pro-privatization groups and drop support of Social Security privatization. In demonstrations across the country and online, we’ll tell Charles Schwab and others: Don’t Pick Our Pockets to Line Yours! Stay tuned—we’ll let you know how to make your voice heard for retirement security.