For Immediate Release
October 3, 2011

Apply a financial transaction tax treatment for world economic ills

World leaders who gather for the G20 economic discussions in Cannes, France in early November will get fiscal advice from an unexpected group – nurses, who will prescribe the immediate application of a financial transaction tax for the economic health of communities everywhere.

Public Services International is working with the International Trade Union Confederation to stage a colourful action in Cannes where nurses will take symbolic emergency measures and inject an FTT to resuscitate the ailing global economy.

At the same time, global union leaders will deliver the "prescription" for a financial transactions tax directly to the current chair of the G20, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, and other heads of state.

“That nurses are courageously taking their demand for a financial transactions tax to the G20 draws attention to the important role of healthcare workers in speaking out about the economic issues that affect both quality of care and working conditions,” says PSI General Secretary Peter Waldorff.

“It’s also an opportunity to highlight that women are among the hardest hit, through loss of jobs and the burden of increased unpaid labour in providing care, when public services are cut.”

The European Union has proposed a bloc-wide financial transactions tax on bond and stock trades to raise billions of euros a year. A global FTT would be most effective. It could fund basic health care for mothers and children, saving millions of lives. It could help tackle the economic downturn and strengthen quality public services, the basis of inclusive and caring societies.

PSI affiliate nurses and other healthcare members in Europe are invited to join a delegation from National Nurses United, and civil society allies, for this event in or near Cannes on 2 November.

The NNU, which has been leading the call in the US for a “Tax on Wall Street”, will also hold a major action in front of the US Treasury Department in Washington DC on 3 November.