Occupational Health and Safety Project Rising From Our Hardship Support the Hunger Strikers & Stop Pataki's Attack on Our Health May 6-13, 2003 New York City The It's About TIME! Campaign for Workers Health and Safety On May 6, injured workers-hurt on the job or injured by the toxic air after 9/11-will embark on a seven-day hunger strike to stop Governor Pataki's attack on our health. Like so many of us here in the U.S., they worked hard to provide for their families and to keep this country going. But instead of a better life, their health and their lives have been destroyed. In the past eight years, Pataki's inhuman policies have been promoting longer work hours and a failing Workers' Compensation Board (WCB) that delays and denies urgently needed benefits and medical treatment for those injured on the job. After 9/11, many families have suffered health and economic problems; Pataki abandoned them. Now he plans to slash vital health programs that injured and low-income workers have had to rely on like Medicaid, SSI, and Family Health Plus. Thousands of low-income people and 9/11 victims tried to bring their health concerns to Pataki's attention. Pataki refused to listen and even escalated his 'rob the poor, feed the rich' agenda. The hunger strike is a brave act of resistance at a time when working people are told that we all must sacrifice our wages, benefits, health, and lives in a time of budget deficits and war. It represents the pure determination of workers who have been stripped to the bone and have nothing left except their will to fight for justice. Together with the hunger strikers, we will stop Pataki's attack on the working people and demand our human right to health, to dignity, and to our lives. For more details, please see our brochure.