Actions to Take

1. Fight for JUSTICE to reduce the gap between rich and poor. It's better for health!

Being active as a public citizen is good for your health. Examples of health promoting activities involving justice issues include:

Get poor people out to vote. The USA has the lowest voter turnout of all democracies, and it is the poor and the young who don't vote. Some authorities feel the US situation is not an accident but was desiged into the constitution and continues to the present day. A society of non-voters is potentially more explosive than one in which most citizens regularly vote.

International IDEA | Voter Turnout contains much information on voting by countries.

Mark Franklin's Home Page Mark is a political scientist at Trinity College on Connecticut. He has calculated average voter turnout among nations for the past 40 years. His forthcoming book on voter turnout with this information can be accessed on his site.

Champion progressive taxation.
Citizens for Tax Justice work toward:
• Fair taxes for middle and low-income families
• Requiring the wealthy to pay their fair share
• Closing corporate tax loopholes
• Adequately funding important government services
• Reducing the federal debt
• Taxation that minimizes distortion of economic markets

United for a Fair Economy raises awareness that concentrated wealth and power undermine the economy, corrupt democracy, deepen the racial divide, and tear communities apart. They support and help build social movements for greater equality.

Rethink the corporate McGovernment system where corporations rule the world.
Program on Corporations, Law and Democracy. Corporations have the rights of citizens in perpetuity and have come to command huge power throughout the world. This clearly increases hierarchy and is bad for our health. POCLAD asks basic questions about how this came about and what can be done.

MoveOn.org: Democracy in Action is working to bring ordinary people back into politics. With a system that today revolves around big money and big media, most citizens are left out. When it becomes clear that our "representatives" don't represent the public, the foundations of democracy are in peril. MoveOn is a catalyst for a new kind of grassroots involvement, supporting busy but concerned citizens in finding their political voice. Our international network of more than 2,000,000 online activists is one of the most effective and responsive outlets for democratic participation available today.

Citizen Policies Institute is a 501(c)(3) tax-deductible educational organization, working to strengthen our democracy and solve our social, cultural, and environmental problems. Our plan combines guaranteed economic security with universal community service.

Basic Income Guarantee (BIG). The basic income guarantee (BIG) is the government insured guarantee that no citizen's income will fall below some minimal level for any reason. All citizens would receive a BIG without means test or work requirement. BIG is an efficient and effective solution to poverty that preserves individual autonomy and work incentives while simplifying government social policy. Some researchers estimate that a small BIG, sufficient to cut the poverty rate in half could be financed without an increase in taxes by redirecting funds from spending programs and taxes deductions aimed at maintaining incomes.

Basic Income European Network. This site represents European perspectives that seem impossible to
consider in the US, but it reflects the way of thinking in the much healthier Western European subcontinent.

A basic income is an income unconditionally granted to all on an individual basis, without means test or work requirement. It is a form of minimum income guarantee that differs from those that now exist in various
European countries in three important ways:
• It is being paid to individuals rather than households;
• It is paid irrespective of any income from other sources;
• It is paid without requiring the performance of any work or the willingness to accept a job if offered.

Liberty and equality, efficiency and community, common ownership of the Earth and equal sharing in the benefits of technical progress, the flexibility of the labour market and the dignity of the poor, the fight
against inhumane working conditions, against the desertification of the countryside and against interregional inequalities, the viability of cooperatives and the promotion of adult education, autonomy from bosses,
husbands and bureaucrats, have all been invoked in its favour.

New America Foundation has a variety of strategies to address structural inequalities. An interesting one is the Asset Building stregies, as described by Ray Boshara, which would give each infant born a sum of money
that is invested until the age of majority.

Statewide Poverty Action Network. Because no one in America should be poor, this Washington State
organization takes action to eliminate the root causes of poverty by informing the public debate, organizing communities, influencing public policy, and fostering dignity.

Income Equity Act of 2001 (HR 2691). Although current trends in taxation in the US are to cut corporate taxes even further (corporations paid 40% of the federal tax bill in 1940, and in 2002 paid 7.1%), there are alternatives, such as this bill.

2. Advocate for a child-supportive environment where CHILDREN get love, care, and opportunities to develop.

The US has one of the most oppressive environments for children imaginable. We are the only nation that hasn't ratified the UN Declaration of the Rights of a Child that resulted from the conference in New York in 1989 that represented the largest gathering of heads of state up to that time. Ways of becoming involved center around acting to promote true family values. This includes support for pregnancy, and for the first few years of life thereafter. We have no federal laws on the books for maternal or paternal leave from work. We require mothers to go out and work and not nurture their children, who then are put into daycare situations and studies show that this leads to later behavioral problems and most likely increased mortality.

The Children's Defense Fund. The mission of the Children's Defense Fund is to Leave No Child Behind and to ensure every child a Healthy Start, a Head Start, a Fair Start, a Safe Start, and a Moral Start in life and successful passage to adulthood with the help of caring families and communities. CDF provides a strong, effective voice for all the children of America, who cannot vote, lobby, or speak for themselves. CDF educates the nation about the needs of children and encourages preventive investment before they get sick or into trouble, drop out of school, or suffer family breakdown.

UNICEF champions children's welfare world-wide.

The Innocenti Research Centre looks at issues involving children and makes comparison reports available.

Where women’s status is higher, everyone’s health is better. Many organizations work to improve the status of women world wide. Coalitions of women working for social gains benefit all of us. Union membership is one way for women to improve their status.
Coalition of Labor Union Women. Its members are on the frontline, empowering working women to become leaders in their unions and encouraging them to make a difference on the job and, most importantly, in their own lives. Its values are solidarity, involvement, dignity and justice.

National Organization for Women. Since its founding in 1966, NOW's goal has been to take action to bring about equality for all women. NOW works to eliminate discrimination and harassment in the workplace, schools, the justice system, and all other sectors of society; secure abortion, birth control and reproductive rights for all women; end all forms of violence against women; eradicate racism, sexism and homophobia; and promote equality and justice in our society.

Having a sense of control in the workplace and at home decreases stress and is good for your health. America's best kept secret is that workers are the largest group of people in the world, and when organized, can wield incredible power. A sense of control and a decent workplace go along with the right to have a union and a commitment to end discrimination at work. We must improve working conditions for everyone.

Working Class Resource Guide. This guide points to many ways for workers to gain power.

American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, an umbrella federation of unions in the U.S. Allied constituency groups include APRI, CBTU, CLUW, LACLA, APALA, PRIDE AT WORK, ALLIANCE OF RETIRED AMERICANS, and in Washington state the NATIVE AMERICAN COALITION.
See: Jobs, Wages & the Economy and Eye on Corporate America

The Labor Party (USA), a national organization comprised of international unions, including the Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy Workers; the United Electrical, Radi and Machine Workers of America; the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees; the American Federation of Government Employees; and the United Mine Workers of American, and hundreds of local unions (representing over 2 million workers), worker supportive organizations and individual members.
See: Just Health Care Campaign, Worker Rights Campaign, Free Higher Education, and 2003 Convention resolution on Current Meltdown of Corporate America.

International Labor Organization (U.N. agency). Adopted in 1998, the ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work is an expression of commitment by governments, employers' and workers' organizations to uphold basic human values—values that are vital to our social and economic lives:

See recent reports: 2003 Time for equality at work, 2002 A future without child labour, 2001 Stopping forced labour, 2000 Your voice at work

Washington State Jobs With Justice, fighting for jobs with justice and against corporate greed since 1993.
See: Washington State JwJ Holds Workers Rights Board (WRB), Hearing on Immigrant Workers, Jobs with Justice Activists Push Through Living Wage Ordinance in Bellingham, WA, WRB Hearing at University of Washington

6. JOIN the POPULATION HEALTH FORUM.

We are a group of academics, citizens, students, and activities across several nations that work to build support for changing the rules of society so that better health comes naturally. Join out list and come to our meetings, and consider organizing chapters in your communities.

To join our listserv send a message to listproc@u.washington.edu.
Leave the subject line blank. In the body of the message type: subscribe pophealth YOUR NAME (NOT your e-mail address).

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