‘Hands off Social Security’
By
Monica Moorehead
Published Apr 6, 2005 5:04 PM
The AFL-CIO mobilized thousands of its
members in over 70 cities March 31 to protest President George W. Bush’s
insidious plan to privatize Social Security. These protests targeted the White
House, Congress and Wall Street—institutions that are conspiring to force
workers to set up personal Social Security accounts.
These actions were
part of a large-scale initiative organized by the union movement to stop
Bush’s latest anti-worker assault plan dead in its tracks. Thirty-six
union staff employees in 21 states have been assigned to work on this
initiative.
AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, who spoke at the Washington,
D.C., rally, characterized Bush’s attack on Social Security as a
“flim-flam scheme.” He warned that privatization will cause
“benefit cuts, an exploding deficit, huge bills for our children and
grandchildren.”
In New York City, the center of international
finance capital, UNITE-HERE and other unions protested outside the exclusive
Ritz-Carlton Hotel where the multimillionaire investment banker Charles Schwab
was attending a luncheon.
Schwab is a high-profile member of the Alliance
for Worker Retirement Security, a major backer of Bush’s attempt to
transform the 60-year-plus federally funded program into a private fund for
profit-hungry investors.
UNITE-HERE President Bruce Raynor said at the New
York protest, “We’re telling the titans of Wall Street to keep their
hands off of Social Security.”
The Bush administration and its
supporters have been put very much on the defensive. Recent polls indicate that
a great majority of the U.S. population wants Bush to keep his hands off of
Social Security.
Some Republicans are accusing the AFL-CIO of violating
labor laws in the area of secondary boycotts, which are boycotts not involving
labor disputes.
In response to this accusation, AFL-CIO Associate General
Counsel Damon Silvers said demonstrations and labor strikes are not the same
since the Social Security protests focus on a public policy.
Silvers said
that threatening to have the Labor Department intervene in mass actions intended
to save Social Security is a violation of the workers’ First Amendment
rights.
Articles copyright 1995-2012 Workers World.
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