Nurses are on strike across the nation because they are not paid well and are overworked. Right here in Brattleboro, the Brattleboro Retreat nurses are gearing up for a strike on July 3 for similar reasons. They had an informational picket last Tuesday at the Brattleboro Commons. Today we will speak with Edward Dowd, a nurse at the Brattleboro Retreat and the Vice President of the United Nurses and Allied Professionals and Lu Hawkins, biologist, educator and a nurse's assitant who used to work at the Retreat. We will also tie these struggles to workers in general in the United States and a recent report by Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Philip Alston who said,
“The United States has the highest rate of income inequality among Western countries…. The consequences of neglecting poverty and promoting inequality are clear. The United States has one of the highest poverty and inequality levels among the OECD countries….But in 2018 the United States had over 25 per cent of the world’s 2,208 billionaires. There is thus a dramatic contrast between the immense wealth of the few and the squalor and deprivation in which vast numbers of Americans exist.”

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