Pfizer Is Neutral on Bush Plan

A major corporation that has been active in a business coalition campaigning for a proposed overhaul of Social Security said Sunday that it was neutral on the issue -- the latest indication of the tenuous support for President Bush’s initiative, even from groups considered natural allies.

The statement by the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer Inc., a longtime member of a business alliance lobbying for Bush’s plan, follows the Feb. 11 announcement by the brokerage firm Edward Jones & Co. that it was withdrawing from the same group.

Edward Jones, based in St. Louis, made its decision after it was subjected to picketing and online protests by labor unions and seniors groups, which have now begun targeting other companies belonging to the Alliance for Worker Retirement Security.

Responding to questions from The Times, Pfizer spokeswoman Darlene Taylor said Sunday in an e-mail that “while Pfizer has been a member of AWRS for a number of years working on broad principles for Social Security, we do not have a position on the current Social Security debate.”

The positions taken by Pfizer and Edward Jones underscore the conflicting pressures placed on corporate executives by a White House eager for their backing on the president’s top domestic priority and by corporate shareholders wary of endangering profits by entering a politically charged battle that could alienate customers and investors.

Pfizer, based in New York, is considered sensitive to pressure from seniors -- a huge market for pharmaceutical products. The 35-million-member AARP and other seniors groups are planning to ratchet up their efforts against the president’s proposal. At the same time, the company wants to retain ties with the administration as its products -- most recently the painkillers Celebrex and Bextra -- face regulatory scrutiny.

The AFL-CIO and other opponents of Bush’s plan are leaning on companies to drop out of the alliance, one of several loosely affiliated business groups that are in contact with officials from the White House and the Republican National Committee over building a national campaign-style push to promote Bush’s proposal to allow workers under 55 to divert a portion of their Social Security taxes to private investment accounts.

Not only can labor unions threaten companies with their ability to mobilize their membership and influence public opinion, but they also have financial clout because they control union pension investments.

The responses of Edward Jones and Pfizer to those pressures raise further questions about Bush’s ability to persuade Congress and the public to go along with his proposal.

Opinion polls show that Bush, despite promoting his proposal in nine states since his Feb. 2 State of the Union address, is failing to gain broad support for the plan, while Democrats in Congress remain unified against it and some Republicans are openly skeptical. Last week, Bush was criticized by economic conservatives in his own party upset that he is open to raising taxes on wealthier Americans to pay for the private accounts’ transition costs, estimated at $1 trillion or more.

Derrick A. Max, executive director of the alliance, downplayed the Pfizer statement Sunday. He said that since Bush had not pushed specific legislation for worker-owned accounts, Pfizer and the alliance had the same stance.

“There’s no bill to be for or against, so I think that’s completely consistent with us,” Max said, noting that he spoke last week with Pfizer officials about their continued participation in the alliance.

In addition to Pfizer, which has served on the alliance’s steering committee, members have included corporate heavyweights such as Boeing Co., Hewlett-Packard Co. and TRW Inc., according to an archived page from the group’s website. Since labor and retiree groups began their campaign against its corporate members, the alliance has removed its membership list from the website.

Max is the point man for a national campaign designed to rally members of Congress to support Bush’s proposal. In addition to his role in the alliance, Max is also executive director of the business group Coalition for the Modernization and Protection of America’s Social Security, or Compass, which last week kicked off a 16-state effort to galvanize support for private accounts.

Max said it was possible that Pfizer and other alliance members did not agree with all of the alliance’s principles. But, he added, “I can’t imagine being a part of the alliance if you did not agree with most, if not all,” of the group’s principles.

Those principles, according to the alliance’s website, www.retiresecure.org, are focused on the president’s support for creating private, worker-owned investment accounts as part of Social Security.

Max’s statement drew sharp criticism from Bill Patterson, an AFL-CIO official, who is lobbying Pfizer and other companies to withdraw from the alliance. Patterson accused the business leaders of trying to simultaneously satisfy the White House while hoping to avoid a public relations fiasco.

He described the Alliance for Worker Retirement Security and similar business groups as the “point of the spear for the administration’s attack on Social Security” and the “vanguard” of the national campaign to establish private accounts.

“To suggest they’re anything close to being neutral is just ridiculous,” Patterson said, citing the tens of millions of dollars the organizations are providing to back the Bush plan. “Alliance members cannot have it both ways. They can’t pump revenue into this massive grass-roots organization and then just say they’re neutral. It’s a total contradiction.”

Pfizer chief Henry A. McKinnell is also chairman of the Business Roundtable, a powerful industry association that supports the president’s call for Social Security private accounts. The Business Roundtable is a member of the Alliance for Worker Retirement Security and of Compass.

Taylor, the Pfizer spokeswoman, declined Sunday to elaborate on the company’s written statement, which noted that Pfizer was “focused on the implementation of the Medicare prescription drug program, expanding coverage for the uninsured, providing access to medicines and reforming America’s health care to focus on prevention and wellness.”