Heather Slavkin, a senior legal and policy adviser for the AFL-CIO Office of Investment, reports on a victory for the global union movement.

Earlier this week, the European Parliament voted by an overwhelming majority in favor of a financial speculation tax—a tiny tax on financial speculation that can raise hundreds of billions of dollars for much-needed public services. This is a huge victory for the global labor movement, which has been at the head of a major worldwide campaign to push for the tax.

For more than a year, the AFL-CIO has been calling on policymakers in Washington, D.C., to make Wall Street pay for creating a global economic meltdown and to help put people back to work. The financial speculation tax would hit Wall Street speculators hard and could raise on the order of $100 billion to $300 billion annually—that’s real money that could be used to rebuild America, put people back to work and help state and local governments meet pressing needs.

It’s time for Washington, D.C., to follow Europe’s lead and pass a financial speculation tax in the United States.