Nurses from across the U.S. will stand up to Wall Street on Wednesday, June 22 to demand the high rollers in the finance capital of the world pay to rebuild the economy of a nation they have done so much to destroy.
Join us for a march and rally that begins at 12 noon on the steps of the Federal Hall across from the Stock Exchange in New York City.
Nurses have grown increasingly alarmed with the health deterioration they see daily among their patients that is ripping at the fabric of so many in our nation today.
They are appalled at the silence from policy makers who seem to care much more about slashing budgets than in addressing the crisis, and from so many in the media who are more focused on the seedy than the needy in our communities or the greedy who put them there.
And, they are taking action -- proposing a Main Street Contract for the American People with much of the revenue to come from the speculators and corporate tax dodgers responsible for the economic meltdown. Read more about our campaign here.
The Wall Street action is part of an International Days of Action called by European unions which is part of a worldwide campaign to make the corporate finance thieves pay to rebuild the global economy. In the U.S. that could raise hundreds of billions of dollars from a sales tax on the buying and selling of stocks, bonds, derivatives, credit default swaps, and other financial machinations that are not taxed and have put so many families in peril.
Other nations are, once again, ahead of us. The UK already has what is called a Financial Transaction Tax, and the proposal was endorsed this week by the French National Assembly and the Brazilian Congress. The protests next week are intended to press all the European Union member nations to adopt the fee.
Endorsers of the Wall Street protest include the AFL-CIO, United Auto Workers, National Jobs with Justice, Greater New York Labor-Religion Coalition, Bakery, Confectionary, and Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers Local 53, Amalgamated Transit Union, New York Taxi Workers Alliance, Right to the City, Vocal NY, Transport Workers Union Local 100, UNITE HERE Local 100 and Working Families.
For nurses, it follows a huge protest earlier this month in Washington DC at the national headquarters of the Chamber of Commerce (which some of us call the Chamber of Horrors), the lobbying arm for corporate America and Wall Street, which as one Congressional aide told visiting nurses last week, "runs this place." See video of the protest here and here.
"America’s nurses see and feel broad declines in health and living standards for their patients, and their own families that are directly tied to the collapse in jobs, housing, healthcare, and other basics of what used to be called the American dream,” says National Nurses United Co-President Deborah Burger, RN. “Nurses are calling for a change in priorities because they have seen enough, and want to stop the bleeding now.”
We're hearing from many people with their accounts of this as well. You can tell us what is happening with your family here.
"America has the wealth to end the despair and deprivation," says NNU Executive Director Rose Ann DeMoro:. To reclaim this nation, we have to start by making Wall Street pay to undo the damage that has caused immeasurable suffering while the high rollers on Wall Street, who created this crisis, are rewarded with bailouts, bonuses, tax cuts, and regulatory rollbacks.”
What's the state of America today?
Some 49 million people live in households dependent on food stamps, food pantries or soup kitchens while 90 percent of the total growth in income in the U.S. the past 25 years has gone to the wealthiest 10 percent.
Real unemployment numbers probably top 17 percent, and nearly half of the "officially" unemployed have been looking for work for 27 weeks or more, one of the highest percentages ever recorded in data that goes back over 60 years. While CEOs at Fortune 500 companies in now make as much as 344 times an average worker's pay.
Wall Street profits rose 720 percent between 2007 and 2009 while American's home equity fell 35 percent.
Politicians from state capitols to Congress see the holy grail in cutting education and health programs, and proposing new cuts in corporate taxes and reduced regulations (public protections). Yet 57 percent of U.S. companies paid no taxes for a year or more over the last decade.
You have to really dig deep for news reports on these disparities. A few sources here and here.
As NNU Executive Director Rose Ann DeMoro notes, it's time to stop "the calls for “shared sacrifice” where all the concessions come from working people while resources continue to be transferred to those who need it the least."
With this campaign, we're taking the effort to end this disgrace up a notch.