WORKERS OF THE WORLD TUNE IN!
Introducing "Building Bridges: Your Community & Labor Report"
Our beat is the labor front, broadly defined, both geographically and conceptually. We examine the world of work and workers on the job as well as where they live. We examine the issues that affect their everyday lives, with a particular sensitivity towards human rights abuses, environmental concerns and the U.S. drive for global domination. We record their global struggles and provide analysis of their efforts to empower themselves and transform society to provide greater democratic, human, social, political and economic rights. Each program consists of feature stories, generally interviews, within a historical context, often accompanied by sound from demonstrations, rallies or conferences, and complemented and enhanced by poetry and instrumental or vocal -- people's culture.
Over the years Building Bridges has produced a weekly one hour program, Mondays from 7-8 PM EST, covering local, national and international labor and community issues over radio WBAI-Pacifica 99.5 FM in New York. We also produce half hour version, Building Bridges National, which is distribtued to over 40 broadcast and internet radio stations.
Furious Improvisation: How the WPA and a Cast of Thousands
Made High Art Out of Desperate Timeswith
author Susan Quinn
President Roosevelt on Unemployment and the
Works Progress Administration (WPA)
Play or download
click below for more information or to post to this blog
Furious Improvisation: How the WPA and a Cast of Thousands
Made High Art Out of Desperate Times
with
author Susan Quinn
A vivid portrait of the turbulent 1930s and the Roosevelt administration
as seen through the WPA’s Federal Theater Project which managed to
turn a WPA unemployment program into a platform for some of the most
cutting-edge theater of its time. It electrified audiences with exciting,
controversial productions, created by some of the greatest figures in
20th century American arts—including Orson Welles, John Houseman
and Sinclair Lewis. Plays like Voodoo Macbeth and The Cradle Will
Rock stirred up politicians by defying segregation and putting the
spotlight on the inequities that led to the Great Depression.
**************
President Roosevelt on Unemployment and the
Works Progress Administration (WPA)
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s 1935 fireside chat broadcast to
a national radio audience on unemployment, public job creation through
the Works Progress Administration (WPA), and the pending Social
Security Act.
Posted in economic crisis, economic stimulus, Federal Theater Project, fireside chats, Furious Improvisation, Great Depression, President Roosevelt, Susan Quinn, unemployment, Works Progress Administration, WPA » Email Post » 0 comments »
For Wall Street It’s Paradise, But For Main Street It’s Hell:
A Conversation With Rev. Jesse Jackson On Rebuilding Our Street
With
Rev. Jesse Jackson, Founder & Pres. RainbowPUSH Coalition
The Rev. Jackson spoke with us about the “jobless recovery” and continuing foreclosure crisis, amidst what some claim is an economic recovery. Jackson will talk about his call for the bailed out banks to reinvest in America and for establishing a national infrastructure bank, providing guarantees for pension funds, to put people to work and invest in education. He’ll highlight the theme for this year’s summit Rainbow Push Economic Summit “Targeted Stimulus: a Call for Equity and Parity" and focus on strategies to directly invest in job creation, minority businesses and underserved communities. According to Jackson, “We have to get the stimulus down to the people.”
play or download
Posted in bank reform, economic crisis, economic stimulus, financial crisis, Jesse Jackson, Jr., Martin Luther King, RainbowPUSH » Email Post » 0 comments »
Nation’s Largest RN Organization Says Healthcare Bill Cedes Too Much to Insurance Industry
With
Jean Ross, Co-President, National Nurses United
San Francisco Hotel Workers Heat Up the New Year
Produced by
The Labor Video Project
Play or download
click below for more information or to post to this blog
Nation’s Largest RN Organization Says Healthcare Bill Cedes Too Much to Insurance Industry
With
Jean Ross, Co-President, National Nurses United
National Nurses United, the nation’s largest union of registered nurses, criticized the healthcare bill passed by the U.S. Senate saying “it is tragic to see the promise from Washington this year for genuine, comprehensive reform ground down to a seriously flawed bill that could actually exacerbate the healthcare crisis and financial insecurity for American families, and that cedes far too much additional power to the tyranny of a callous insurance industry.” NNU believes that the bill seems more likely to be eroded, not improved, in future years due to the unchecked influence of the healthcare industry.
*********
San Francisco Hotel Workers Heat Up the New Year
Produced by
The Labor Video Project
Over 1400 hotel workers and their community allies demonstrated in down-
town San Francisco, on Jan 5 against major hotel corporations’ refusal to
settle fair contracts. They were joined by Richard Trumka, President of the
AFL-CIO, and UNITE HERE President John Wilhelm, who along with over
150 union members and community supporters sat down in front of the Hilton
Hotel to launch a customer boycott of the Hilton San Francisco Union Square.
The action comes after nearly five months of negotiations and street actions
(including strikes), in which Hotel Managements have called for cutbacks while
the workers have been seeking modest increases to sustain health care and
retirement benefits. Meanwhile, despite the economic downturn, major hotel
companies have continued to prosper.
Posted in health care reform, Hotel Workers, John Wilhelm, National Nurses United, Richard Trumka, single payer, Unite-HERE » Email Post » 0 comments »
Argentina: This is What a Labor Movement Looks Like
With
Marina Kabat, Prof., Argentinean History, Univ. of Buenos Aires; Coordinator, Working-Class Studies Workshop, Center for the Study & Investigation of Social Sciences (CEICS)
and
Immanuel Ness, Prof., Brooklyn College, CUNY and author The International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest: 1500 to the Present
Fighting Unemployment and Poverty:Evergreen Laundry and Worker Cooperatives in Cleveland OhioProduced
by the Evergreen Cooperative Initiative
Play or download
click below for more information or to post to this blog
Argentina: This is What a Labor Movement Looks Like
With
Marina Kabat, Prof., Argentinean History, Univ. of Buenos Aires; Coordinator, Working-Class Studies Workshop, Center for the Study & Investigation of Social Sciences (CEICS)
and
Immanuel Ness, Prof., Brooklyn College, CUNY and author The International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest: 1500 to the Present
The economic collapse in Argentina has created a new labor movement for dignity and control over the work process and democratization of their communities. Recently, the Kraft food workers’ insurgent union successfully fought firings with a strike & plant occupation which receivedmass community and labor support despite violent state repression. The United Education Workers, a militant worker-led union, struck for living wages, closing all schools in the Buenos Aires region, to resist the government's austerity plan. Workers have also shut down the Buenos Aires subway system, suspended major construction projects & defended wages against government cutbacks. The piqueteros, unemployed & low-wage workers movements, are successfully staging mass actions, including blocking major roads & highways, even as police brutality grows. They have occupied & taken over factories leading to a national cooperative movement which has democratized workplaces for more
than a million workers.
*****************
Fighting Unemployment and Poverty:Evergreen Laundry and Worker Cooperatives in Cleveland Ohio
Produced by the Evergreen Cooperative Initiative
“Something important is happening in Cleveland.” With the opening of the Evergreen Cooperative Laundry on October 21st – a worker-owned commercial-scale “green” business based in the Glenville neighborhood, one of the most severely disinvested areas in Cleveland. Mayor Frank Jackson called the laundry, “a model for how we can put our people back to work and rebuild our community.” This new model for economic development was inspired by the network of worker cooperative in Mondragon, Spain. It is the first in a network of worker cooperatives that is being launched in the city by the Evergreen Cooperative Initiative.
Posted in Argentina economic crisis, Argentina labor, Argentina worker cooperatives, Cleveland worker cooperatives, Evergreen Cooperative, Immanuel Ness, Kraft strike, Marina Kabat, piqueteros » Email Post » 0 comments »
Building Bridges: Your Community and Labor Report is broadcast weekly in the N.Y.C. to the Metropolitan area over WBAI, Pacifica on Mondays from 7-8 PM EST. Building Bridges and most WBAI Programs are now being archived for 90 Days. They are also being PodCast. These links will be live ca. 15 minutes after the program ends. To listen, download or PodCast archived shows go to http://archive.wbai.org/allshows.php?sort=nameaz
We also produce half hour version, Building Bridges National, Edition which is distributed to over 40 broadcast and internet radio stations.
Building Bridges National Edition is regularly broadcast over radio stations: WGOT - Gainesville, Florida, WUOW - Oneonta, N.Y. WWUH, - West Hartford, CT WVJW- Benwood, WV KRFP, Moscow, ID KCSB, Santa Barbara, CA WXOJ, Northampton, MA KSOW,Cottage Grove, Oregon WKNH ,Keene, NH CKDU, Halifax, N.S., Canada KRFC, Fort Collins, Colorado WRPI, Troy, New York WNRB, Wausau, WI KRBS, Oroville, CA WHLD,Buffalo,NY Radio Free Olympia,Olympia,WA, KQRP Salida, California East Hill Radio, Snoqualmie, WA, , KSKQ, Ashland, Oregon as well as internet stations: Radio Veronica,West Point, PA ,The Journey Radio WXXE Seattle Radical Radio Radio for Radio forPeace International, Radio Labourstart, AmericanFM.org, RadioDriftless.org , Grateful Dread Public Radio ========================================
BUILDING BRIDGES SPECIALS
A Conversation with Harry Belafonte__The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire and Its Legacy____Charlie King & Karen Brandow: IWW in Songs ____Greenhouse: The Big Squeeze ____ Gerald Horne - Red Seas ____Emma's Revolution: Pat Humphries & Sandy O ____ Martin Luther King Jr. Speaks to Labor ____Domestic Workers Uniting ____ Mearsheimer-The Israel Lobby ____Drehle-Triangle Fire ____Tye-Pullman Porters____ Utah Phillips ___ Virtual May Day Demonstration ___ Mother Jones ___ Michael Moore - Sicko ___ Immigrant Nation or Divided Nation - 2007 ___ Sisters on the Frontline - 2007 ___ Bearing Witness - A Portrait of Women in War - Iraq(2007) ___ Ruby Dee: A Life Lit by some Large Vision: Selected Speeches and Writings by Ossie Davis ___ Rep. John Conyers - National Health Care: The Time Has Come ___ Pete Seeger ___ Si Kahn: The Fox in the Henhouse - Part I ___ Si Kahn: The Fox in the Henhouse - Part II ___ Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers with Robert Greenwald
Posts
