Two major unions have begun using their leverage to encourage corporations to not support plans to privatize Social Security. The American Federation of County and Municipal Employees as well as the Laborers International Union have written to executives at Morgan Stanley, Charles Schwab and others telling them if they support President Bush's plan they may lose their business. AFSCME President Gerald W. McEntee has gone a step further and asked the CEO of Pfizer to withdraw membership from the Alliance for Worker Retirement Security. According to the Laura Miller, editor at the Center for Media and Democracy as well as a WIN contributor, the Alliance is a business coalition formed to promote privatization of Social Security.

[Miller]: The Alliance also has close ties to the Bush White House as it's former executive director now is the special assistant on Social Security at the White House and one of the chief architects of the Bush Social Security plan at the National Economic Council.

Miller says the Alliance counts as members USANext who has recently come under fire for creating an attack ad accusing the American Association for Retired Persons as being in support of gay marriage but against troops serving in Iraq. The ad was seen as some as a smear campaign because of the AARP's opposition to social security privatization. US organized labor has more than $400 billion invested in pension plans and they have already pressured St. Louis-based Edward Jones and Co., the world's largest retail brokerage firm, to pull out of the Alliance.