CLARITY Act would open the door to crypto corruption | GUEST COMMENTARY

Corporate interests and billionaire investors love to gamble with our financial system. When they do, it’s working people who end up paying the price. Our jobs, our homes and our hard-earned retirement savings take massive hits whenever the market collapses.

That is why the 16.5 million union members represented by the AFL-CIO — and working families across Maryland and D.C. — are deeply concerned about the cryptocurrency market structure bill moving through the U.S. Senate. The CLARITY Act, a bill that will allow volatile cryptocurrency assets to recklessly access our pensions and retirement investments, is being intensely considered in the Senate. This bill is bad for workers, putting working people’s financial security and retirement at risk — while shielding crypto companies from serious oversight and regulation and making big tech and venture capitalist CEOs richer.

The primary authors and backers of the CLARITY Act are the exact same venture capital firms, corporate tech giants and online platforms that actively fight workers’ fundamental right to unionize. Maryland’s working families need our Sens. Chris Van Hollen and Angela Alsobrooks to vote NO on the bill.

Support for labor unions is at a modern-day high. Gallup polling reports 71% of American adults approve of unions. A majority (52%) of Republicans approve of labor unions, as well as 89% of Democrats and 70% of independents. Surveys also reveal that over 50 million U.S. workers who generate the corporate profits and sustain our daily infrastructure would vote to have a union if the aggressive corporate stalling tactics and broken system did not deny them workplace democracy.