While oil giant Chevron bags $14 billion in profits, workers who clean their buildings in Houston earn $5 an hour with no health insurance. One of their leaders is Ercilia Sandoval, a janitor who was diagnosed with breast cancer and is fighting for her life even as she fights for health care for working people in America.

The story of Ercilia Sandoval is one reason that I wrote my book, A Country That Works.

Ercilia is a resolute woman battling breast cancer in Houston, has a good question for oil giant Chevron: Does Chevron really think that donating a minuscule  percentage of its $14.1 billion a year profit to breast cancer research absolve them of responsibility for people like her? Ercilia doesn’t think so – and that’s why on October 19th she is leading a national day of action at Chevron gas stations all over the country to ask the same question. (For more information go to chevronwontyoujoinus.org.)

You see, Ercilia is one of the people in this country who did exactly what she was supposed to do. She worked hard every day sweeping floors, cleaning toilets, and taking out the garbage in some of Houston’s most elegant office buildings. She is  willing to work hard to raise her two girls. She tried to save what she could, but on a little more than $5 an hour, it’s hard to find enough money to pay the bills.

Then she was diagnosed with breast cancer.

Ercilia was already a fighter and a leader among her co-workers. Now, in addition to fighting for her life, she's fighting for 5,300 other Houston janitors, and for the other 46 million people in this country who do not have health insurance.  (Because of her efforts, Glamour magazine has chosen Ercilia as a finalist for "Woman of the Year.") In Houston, despite exhaustion and weakness from chemotherapy, she is helping to lead a potential strike of thousands of janitors. 

Her story is remarkable, but unfortunately becoming all too common.  More and more hard-working families across the country without health insurance are being faced with financial hardships over unexpected and tragic health crises like breast cancer. Many more families are just a paycheck away from economic disaster. 

Chevron, which controls more office space than any other company in Houston, has the power to help Ercilia get the health insurance she needs to beat her cancer Unfortunately, but all too predictably, Chevron is refusing to stand up for health care. It's a moral disgrace that in the 21st century, people in the richest nation in the history of the world still die from illnesses simply because they are too poor to see a doctor.

Wealthy corporations sit on the sidelines in the national health care debate while their contractors refuse to make affordable health care possible. It’s a moral outrage that Chevron, with billions in profits, still refuses to take responsibility for the well-being and health of honest, hard-working people Ercilia and her co-workers who clean the toilets and empty the garbage in the office buildings they occupy. 

Financially it doesn’t add up either: McKinsey & Company projects that by 2008, the average Fortune 500 company will spend as much on health care as they make in profit. How can we possibly compete in the global economy with that kind of burden? 

Instead of sitting on the sidelines and ignoring their responsibility to our communities, our nation’s wealthiest corporations like Chevron should be leading the way toward creating a stronger future for this country. 

By standing up for health care for Ercilia and thousands of Houston janitors, Chevron and other commercial landlords in Houston can take the first important step toward finding new solutions to the health care crisis and ensuring that all people can earn a decent living to take care of themselves and their families.