Edward Jones Quits Group Backing Private Accounts

Edward Jones & Co., a brokerage firm with more than 8,500 branches in the U.S., said Friday that it was withdrawing from a business coalition lobbying for private Social Security accounts.

The decision to leave the Alliance for Worker Retirement Security followed protests by members of the AFL-CIO outside Edward Jones headquarters in St. Louis and an office in Lincoln, Neb., on Tuesday.

In a statement, Regina DeLuca-Imral, an Edward Jones spokeswoman, didn’t refer to the protests as a reason for the company’s withdrawal from the coalition. The company, she said, hasn’t endorsed a specific proposal.

The Social Security “system requires reform in order to provide for its continued viability,” DeLuca-Imral said. “We are studying the various proposals and have not yet determined which option will be best for our clients.”

In January, the AFL-CIO, which opposes President Bush’s proposal to divert 4 percentage points of payroll taxes to establish the accounts, began picketing companies such as San Francisco-based Charles Schwab & Co. that support the administration proposal. The union called Jones “a major backer” of the accounts.

A call to a union spokesman wasn’t returned.

Derrick Max, executive director of the alliance of 40 businesses and associations founded by the Washington-based National Assn. of Manufacturers, disputed the scope of Jones’ role. “Edward Jones had been a small but faithful donor to our efforts,” he said.

Max blamed himself for not warning the firm, which has been a member of the alliance since 1998, about the protests.

“Their decision to let their membership expire has more to do with my failure to notify them that they may be picketed, than with the picketing itself,” Max wrote in an e-mail.