Talk:Alliance for Worker Retirement Security

Why the big rush to privatize? To pay back the Bush supporters. The GAO, Government Accounting Office has said that there is plenty of money in Social Security until the year 2042 and with a little tweaking there is no shortfall until 2054. Wake up people. This privatization by the Bushies is just a way to kill Social Security. It is part of the big plan to roll back all social programs created for the people by Democrats.

Comment by Catherine Stanford, Albany, NY: July 17, 2005 - I looked up this organization, Alliance for Worker Retirement Security, because its Executive Director was interviewed for a story on NPR's Morning Edition on April 1, 2005, after the protests against Wall Street investment firms being part of this organization and appearing to be in alliance with this organization, which is promoting privatization. The Executive Director is Derrick Max and the NPR reporter Langfitt said that "He (Derrick Max) also says union opposition to personal accounts is disingenuous. He says labor opposes the idea because the more workers invest their own retirement savings in the market, the less hold unions have on them." Since I am a union member and a grass-roots activist against privatizing Social Security, I want to record this "disingenous" comment made by Derrick Max. Labor's protest against Wall Street firms, Charles Schwab and Wachovia, worked because the two firms, according to this same NPR report, dropped out of the Alliance for Worker Retirement Security. There is no evidence that gambling in the stock market will produce both retirement security and a rate as high as the "defined benefit" pension plan can provide. Union fought hard to create pension plans, and many workers would like to have a union-guaranteed pension plan, but weak labor laws and the union-busting tactics that employers use to scare and/or discourage workers from signing a card and voting for a union are among the most important reasons that that we are not having more success in union organizing efforts. This group is disingenously named because they do not care about worker retirement security; they care about industry and employer freedom from having to maintain or establish true retirement security. They do not want to provide employer pensions and now they want to destroy Social Security, one of the most successful government programs ever developed. Social Security is 70 years old this August, 2005. We should strengthen Social Security, not destroy it. A couple of simple steps that would solve the problem of a projected shortfall 40-50 years from now is to stop stealing money from the trust fund for other government programs and to raise the cap higher than $90,000 for those who pay into the Trust Fund.