Nurses, Activists, Cite Public Health Emergency

Demand Moratorium End to Water Shutoffs

Registered nurses, Detroit residents, clergy, labor, environmental activists, and attendees from the Netroots Nation convention in Detroit will hold a march and rally Friday July 18 to call for an immediate moratorium on the water shutoffs in Detroit that they call a public health emergency and a major violation of human rights.

The march and rally will also call for a tax on Wall Street speculation which could raise hundreds of billions of dollars for communities like Detroit which have been pummeled by recession, unemployment, foreclosures and other pain directly linked to the Wall Street meltdown and plunder of major urban areas.

What: March and rally calling for a moratorium on water shutoffs

When: Friday, July 18

Times: March begins at 1 p.m. outside Netroots Nation convention, corner of Washington and W. Congress St. Rally, 1:45 p.m. Hart Plaza, Detroit

The action is sponsored by National Nurses United, the largest U.S. organization of nurses, the Robin Hood tax on Wall Street Campaign, and endorsed by several dozen community organizations and Netroots Nation activists.

Rally supporters charge that Gov. Rick Snyder and his handpicked emergency manager officials are enforcing the water shutoffs to promote the privatization of the public water department, the latest gift, they say, to Wall Street financial interests who have bankrupted the city. 

“Cutting off water to community residents, a level of punishment not inflicted on major commercial property owners, is a disgraceful attack on the basic human right of access to safe, clean water,” said NNU Co-President Jean Ross, RN. “Nurses also know the critical link between access to water and public health. Lack of water, like unsafe sanitation, is a major health disaster that can lead to disease outbreaks and pandemics. The city must end this shutoff now.”

Among the many local, national, and international endorsers of the march and rally are: the Michigan Nurses Association, Metropolitan Detroit AFL-CIO, National Action Network-Michigan, Food and Water Watch, Detroit Water Brigade, People’s Water Board, Canadian Federal of Nurses Unions, Detroit Eviction Defense, Detroiters Resisting Emergency, National People’s Action, Health GAP (Global Action Project), We the People of Detroit, Color of Change, Franciscan Action Network, Detroit Public Schools Education Task Force, Michigan Election Reform Alliance, Student Global AIDS Campaign, Coalition of Labor Union Women, Detroit Active and Retired Employees, and many other groups.