WASHINGTON, DC - Janitors will highlight the need for affordable health care in DC with a march to the offices of the American Medical Association, which has refused to help ensure that the janitors who clean their offices are provided with health insurance.

Janitors who clean the AMA's Vermont Avenue offices are paid as little as $6.15 per hour and receive no health benefits. On their meager salaries, seeing a doctor can wreck their family budgets. A prescription for antibiotics alone costs an entire day's wages.

Despite a booming commercial real estate market in DC which brought real estate firms here more than $3 billion in rental revenue last year, the city's building owners have so far remained on the sidelines as DC's health care crisis begs for a solution. Only 1 in 10 janitors who cleans DC's commercial office buildings is provided with health insurance. Some 70,000 DC residents are uninsured, seniors have lost access to free prescription drugs, and the fate of the city's hospital that serves the poor remains up in the air.

Across the country, SEIU's Justice for Janitors campaign has launched campaigns to win affordable health insurance for more janitors. Nationwide, 9 in 10 janitors receive no health coverage from their employers. The janitors hope shining a spotlight on one of the nation's most important industries -- accounting for nearly 12 percent of GDP -- will create the kind of momentum needed to solve the nation's health care crisis. Currently, 41 million Americans are uninsured and thousands fear losing their coverage because of skyrocketing costs.

AMA: "HAVE A HEART, JANITORS NEED HEALTH CARE TOO"

WHO: DC janitors, members of SEIU Local 82 will march from Franklin Square Park to the offices of the AMA.

WHEN: Fri, Feb. 14, 4:30 p.m. (gather at park)

WHERE: Franklin Square Park 13th and K to 1101 Vermont Avenue

VISUALS: Janitors will carry signs that say AMA Have a Heart, Janitors Need Health Care. They'll deliver a giant heart carved from ice to the AMA's offices.

Service Employees International Union

Service Employees International Union

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