National Nurses United

RAD_DEC REV 2/9/12 5:13 PM Page 9 RoseAnn DeMoro Executive Director, National Nurses United All the World's a Stage N NNU RNs work to revive global economy urses around the world, like so many heroic leaders and activists within NNU, are carrying their commitment to protecting their patients and their union contracts to advocating for their communities, their nations, and global health. Can tens of thousands of nurses be wrong? Following up on the incredible forum we cosponsored at the G-20 summit of world leaders in France in November featuring nurses from four continents, we were honored to co-convene a meeting in London earlier this month to plan next steps in our international campaign on how to revive our global health. Representing us to a broad-based gathering of 30 labor, healthcare, environmental, and other non-governmental organizations (NGOs) from 10 countries, NNU Vice President Malinda Markowitz, RN, presented a summary of NNU's great year-long Main Street campaign, joined by thousands of nurses in big rallies and small street fairs. Malinda explained that among the key lessons we have learned is the power of "participatory democracy," the most effective way to challenge the power of Wall Street and corporate influence in the economy and government, as well as the inherent strength of aligning with nurses and other working people worldwide to press our common concerns. Just as the economic crisis that has put the health and livelihood of so many families in the United States at risk is not confined to our borders, the response from working people the world over is similarly an international phenomenon. We can be additionally proud that nurses from one continent to the next have been in the forefront of efforts to resist punishing austerity measures, in highlighting the harmful health consequences of deep budget cuts and crippling poverty, and in calling for worldwide solutions, including financial transaction taxes on the banks and other financial institutions that caused so much pain and suffering for so many. Together we have escalated the pressure for adoption of a speculation tax on stocks, bonds, and other financial instruments to DECEMBER 2011 NNU Vice President Malinda Markowitz, RN (center) meets with British UNISON nurses help raise money for protection of vital public and community services, and global action against poverty and harmful climate change. Thanks to the international movement, of which NNU is a leading part, France is on the verge of adopting a national financial transaction tax (FTT), Germany and much of Europe may follow, and the proposal has been endorsed by other countries around the world, including Brazil and South Africa. Opening the London meeting, Owen Tudor, representing the host Trade Union Congress, which includes 58 unions in the United Kingdom, said it was everyone's hope that this year would mark the "closing stage" of what has been a remarkable and historic global campaign for the FTT. "The stakes couldn't be higher because we have to get progress this year, the idea is now in public consciousness, on government agendas, and we have to make it a reality this year," he said. The sense of momentum evoked at the meeting was inspiring. As was noted by several leaders, some activists have been working globally to enact a tax on financial transactions for 30 years. In the past few years, the campaign has exploded; last year alone was a "tipping point," as David Hillman of Stamp Out Poverty and the Robin Hood campaign put it, and now it's up to all of us to achieve what he called "the fruits of our labor." Part of what has propelled the movement forward is the escalating attacks on working people and public services across the planet. Teresa Marshall of Public Services International, the global federation of public worker unions, described the attack on public workers, the result of austerity measures often promoted by international banks and other financial W W W. N A T I O N A L N U R S E S U N I T E D . O R G institutions, that bear an eerie, cross-border similarity. But in country after country there is response and public protest. One of the least-told stories about Egypt, she noted, was the "myth" of the Facebook and Twitter uprising. Egyptian generals have admitted, she said, that years of forced privatization and severe cuts in services have sparked public protests for several years and demonstrated to an entire nation "that it is possible to go out to the streets to press your demands." Like the United States, Britain has not been immune from the attacks on public services, and the sight of street heat in response. Malinda also met with nurses in unions in Britain who could not say enough about the support of NNU members who in November rallied at the British embassy in Washington and consulates in Boston, Orlando, Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco in solidarity with a massive strike of two million British workers protesting threatened cuts in pensions. Britain today also faces a major threat to its national crown jewel, its National Health Service. The present British government is pushing a major overhaul of the NHS that would funnel substantial public revenues to private healthcare institutions which are creeping into the United Kingdom in growing numbers. HCA, for example, now has opened several facilities in London. The British medical journal Lancet has warned that the government's overhaul bill will "pave the way for the introduction of a U.S.-style health system" with "widespread provision by private health corporations" with all the inequities and numbing, uncontrolled costs all too familiar to us. Nurses and other healthcare workers, and their unions, are proudly in the forefront of the movement to fight the bill. We have offered to help, and continue our international campaign for a better, healthier world for all. RoseAnn DeMoro is executive director of National Nurses United. N AT I O N A L N U R S E 9

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