When the Statue of Liberty got “sick” over what’s happening to her country, the nation’s nurses rushed to New York City to try and help her get well.

One by one, members of National Nurses United (NNU) and their friends diagnosed what was making Lady Liberty ill. Some of the people were victims of the foreclosure crisis spawned by Wall Street’s greed. Others were victims of a broken health care system. Even more were jobless.

Finally, Lady Liberty perked up when one person pointed to the Stock Exchange across the street and said the nation needs a financial speculation tax to make Wall Street pay its fair share to heal America.

This street theater was the centerpiece of a huge protest as thousands of working men and women converged on Wall Street today to demand that the same financial market speculators who plunged our economy into the recession pay to rebuild the nation. Chanting “Hey Wall Street! Heads Up! The People Won’t Give Up,” the crowd of union members, faith and community activists rallied today as part of a global day of action for a financial speculation tax.

In more than 50 cities worldwide, workers took to the streets to demand that governments ensure that financial institutions pay for an economic recovery. The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) reported that speculative transactions, including financial derivatives, earned the world’s banks $605 trillion in 2010, or around 10 times the world’s gross domestic product and most of that money is untaxed.

Sharan Burrow, ITUC’s general secretary, said:

It was this speculative money that was one of the major drivers in the financial collapse in 2008, but as an industry it continues to grow, without delivering anything back to the real economies of national governments. This industry must start paying its way, instead of just generating obscene profits for the worlds’ bankers and financiers.

In a letter to Gene Sperling, director of the White House National Economic Council, 42 organizations, including the AFL-CIO, called on the administration to “ensure that Wall Street does more to aid the recovery”  through  a small levy on financial speculation. The letter says a modest levy of 0.25 percent could provide a “a permanent, reliable revenue stream of approximately $100 billion a year. “