Democrats blast GOP on pension fund bill

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A leading House Democrat accused Republicans on Saturday of failing to adequately protect workers' pension funds in new legislation.

The Republican-led House passed a bill Thursday legislators said was designed to give workers more control over their employer-sponsored 401(k) accounts.

But U.S. Rep. John Conyers, D-Michigan, said it doesn't go far enough.

"The Republicans just don't get it," he said in the Democrats' weekly radio address Saturday.

"Their pension bill would open up new loopholes that would allow corporate executives to quickly sell off all of their plummeting stock holdings at the expense of hard-working employees who would have had to wait five years."

Conyers said the bill, inspired by the Enron collapse, doesn't sufficiently protect workers' interests or guard against white-collar crime.

Conyers also accused the Bush administration of looking the other way regarding white-collar crime.

"The amendment that the Republicans rejected in Congress this week in a straight party-line vote would have closed the loopholes that exist in current law," he said.

"Most have already figured it out that the reason the president and the Republicans don't want to get tough with white-collar criminals is because they are their friends, they work together and they go to the same country clubs," Conyers said.