Building Bridges: Your Community and Labor Report
National Edition – 27:24
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Immigrant Guest Workers – Now and Then
With
Stephanie Black, Filmmaker, “H-2 Worker”,
Winner of the Grand Jury prize at the Sundance Film Festival
and
Bruce Goldstein, Exec. Director, Farmworker Justice



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A fascinating exposé of Florida’s sugar cane industry,
“H-2 Worker” reveals the systematic exploitation of Caribbean
laborers by the Florida sugar industry from WW II through the
1990s. Each year more than 10,000 foreign workers were
granted temporary guest worker (“H-2”) visas to spend six
brutal months cutting sugar cane near Lake Okeechobee. They
were housed in overcrowded barracks, denied adequate
treatment for frequent on-the-job injuries, and paid less than
minimum wage.


Originally released in 1990, and now with update material to
cover the present , H-2 Worker provides an invaluable resource
to understand the current debate over guest worker provisions of
immigration legislation. While Florida’s sugar cane cutters have
been replaced by mechanical harvesters, guest worker programs
have expanded in agriculture, hotel, restaurant, forestry and other
industries. H-2 Worker illuminates how our foreign worker
program continues to benefit employers at the expense of vulnerable
underpaid workers.

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Building Bridges: Your Community and Labor Report
National Edition 26 minutes
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Focus Mexico – Crisis Upon Crisis
with
Benjamin Anaya, an independent journalist, muralist
and Mexican activist
Daniel La Botz, editor, Mexican Labor News & Analysis
Prof. Manny Ness, author of the new extraordinary International
Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest

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We explore how has the current economic crisis which
started in the U.S. has greatly impacted workers in Mexico.
It has compounded an economy already broken by NAFTA.
The drug trade and a narco culture has exploded which
has also resulted in increased repression by the Mexican
military against the general population. We look at
deterioration of working conditions and casualization of
labor, the continuing struggle in Oaxaca & by Independent
unions & especially the struggle of the Mexican Miners
and Metal Workers Union++++++++++++++++++++++++++

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Building Bridges: Your Community and Labor Report
National Edition 27 minutes
************************************
Warehouse Workers Sit-Down in California’s Inland Empire
with
Isabel Castelan, Warehouse worker (sit-in participant)
Esther Portillo, Community Organizer (sit-in participant)
Greg Denier, Communications Director, Change to Win

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A southern California rally calling for improved warehouse jobs turned into a sit-in action that led to the arrest of 13 people. The workers were protesting the economic tragedy which is unfolding in the “hub” of the new global economy— the Inland Empire region of southern California which houses massive warehouses for the nation’s biggest retailers. This region is in the middle of a depression with one of the highest rates of unemployment, however, its low- wage, temporary workers are speaking out and are at the core of a growing fight back.

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Building Bridges: Your Community and Labor Report
National Edition 27:41
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An Occupation and On the Picket Line At The Visteon
Plants In Belfast And Enfield, London
with
Phil Wilson, machine setter, Visteon Ensfield plant
Jerry Campbell, retiree, Visteon, Belfast plant

Are Attacks on Social Security Coming Soon?
with
Dean Baker,
Co-Director,Center for Economic & Policy Research,
and author of Plunder and Blunder: The Rise and Fall of
the Bubble Economy

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click below for more information or to post to this blog



An Occupation and On the Picket Line At The Visteon
Plants In Belfast And Enfield, London

with

Phil Wilson, machine setter, Visteon Ensfield plant

Jerry Campbell, retiree, Visteon, Belfast plant

More than 600 Workers in Visteon car parts plants in Belfast,
Northern Ireland and Enfield and Basildon, England were given
6-minutes notice before their factories would be closing leaving
them without jobs and without contractually agreed upon layoff
benefits.The workers staged spontaneous sit-ins, first in Belfast
on March 31st that spread to two other plants. The workers in
Enfield stopped their occupation after being threatened with long
jail sentences. They are now picketing the plant around the clock.
The occupation continues in Belfast.
*********************
Are Attacks on Social Security Coming Soon?

with

Dean Baker,
Co-Director,Center for Economic & Policy Research,
and author of Plunder and Blunder: The Rise and Fall of
the Bubble Economy

Baker had warned for years about the coming recession due to
the real estate bubble and unregulated financial markets. Now that
we are in the middle of the crisis , the geniuses that got us into
the mess have been appointed to get us out of it, How smart is that?
But we can think of few better to outline what went wrong and how to
begin to set it right than Dean Baker who now warns us that some
in the the Obama Administration and Congress are planning attacks
in this year's budget on the Social Security Trust Fund to pay for the
bank bailouts.

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