National Nurses United (NNU), the largest union and professional association of nurses in America, announced this week that they will hold a march and rally at the G-8 summit in Chicago on May 18.
The NNU will be joined by other labor, health care and community activists. The group is slated to call for world leaders to adopt a financial transaction tax (FTT) on major trading by banks and other financial institutions to raise revenue they feel is necessary for “revitalizing the economic health of the U.S. and other G-8 nations.”
On top of calling for a FTT, marchers plan on bringing awareness to austerity programs that they say have eroded health and living standards for the world.
The G-8 summit is a forum where governments from the world’s eight largest economies gather to discuss policy.
“The banks, investment corporations and other financial institutions plunged our economy into crisis by gambling with the savings, home mortgages, pensions and futures of American families,” said NNU Co-President Karen Higgins in a statement. “Nurses have seen enough suffering from patients whose health has been broken by losing their jobs, their homes and their health coverage.
“It’s time for action, starting with a tax on Wall Street speculation, which is currently untaxed, as a simple but fair way to begin to raise the revenue needed to bring our nation and our economy back to health.”
Last November, nurses from four different continents joined other labor groups at the G-20 summit in France to push for national and continent-wide FTTs. In the same month, the NNU held a rally of nurses, labor unions, consumers and Occupy Wall Street activists outside the White House and Treasury Department asking President Barack Obama to support a significant tax on Wall Street.