Building Bridges Radio: Your Community & Labor Report

Produced and Hosted by Mimi Rosenberg & Ken Nash over WBAI,99.5FM in the NYC Metro Area

WHO WE ARE

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.


For more information you can contact us at knash@igc.org
In Struggle Mimi Rosenberg & Ken Nash

Jobs, Jobs, Jobs - 27:44  

The State of Working America
with
. Avis Jones-DeWeever, Director of Research & Public Policy,
National Council of Negro Women

. Juan Cartagena, General Counsel & Vice Pres. of Advocacy,
Community Service Society,

. Robert Pollin, Co- Dir., Political Economy Research Institute
& economics professor, University of Massachusetts, Amherst


The United States is experiencing its worst jobs crisis since the
Great Depression. Nearly 16 million Americans, our family, friends,
and neighbors are out of work. This national crisis demands a bold
plan to put people back to work. We must understand why there’s
a jobs crisis, and create a plan that would create millions of jobs
each year, every year. We do the analysis of the jobs crisis and
discuss what must be done to put America back to work.

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Building Bridges: Greek Meltdown; Mass Transit Unions Fight Cuts - 27:51  

TWU Local 100 – Keep America Moving - Fighting Layoffs
FeaturingJohn Samuelsen, President, TWU, Local 100
Rev. Jesse Jackson, President, Rainbow PUSH Coalition
Larry Hanley. ATU International Vice President

2500 Transit workers and supporters rallied at NYC’s Penn Station in an event timed to coincide with other actions taken around the nation to protest the insufficiency of federal funding for mass transit. The Rev. Jesse Jackson spoke as part of the Keep America Moving Coalition, an alliance of transit workers, advocates for workers and the poor, and environmentalists. For Local 100, the event was not only about Keep America Moving, but also about the immanent layoff of hundreds of Station Agents with threats of many more layoffs in other titles including bus drivers. Union members expressed their profound anger over the firings, which are seen as unnecessary because of the availability of $140 million in federal stimulus funds which could be used to cover operating expenses.
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The Greek Meltdown
with
Prof. Costas Panayotakis, Professor of Sociology,NYC College of Technology, CUNY.

After weeks of massive, tumultuous worker protests over the austerity measures being forced on the Greece as part of the EU rescue package, the measures were approved by the Greek Parliament and the leaders of the European Union. The $146 billion three-year package would indirectly bail out the European banks that hold most of the Greek debt.by attempting to solve the crisis on the backs of ordinary Greeks. It raises taxes as well as imposes deep cuts in public sector wages and pensions in both public and private sectors. If it indeed works as intended, it will intensify the Greek recession, unemployment and poverty. This may exacerbate the very debt crisis it is supposed to solve

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Labor Takes on Wall Street - 27:02  

Taking the Bull by the Horns: Labor Takes on Wall Street

Thousands of people marched on Wall Street April 29, in a major protest of financial sector greed and lending practices by big banks. Taking to the streets of downtown Manhattan, 10,000 labor and community groups shouted and jeered at the offices surrounding them, demanding three major changes to Wall Street culture. The first is to call off the lobbyists fighting regulatory reform. The second is to stop the incessant focus on market speculation over business lending. The third is to tax Wall Street to fund job creation The rally, was one of the largest in recent memory to take place at the epicenter of finance capital Wall Street.
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The Socialist Bank of North Dakota with Dr Rozanne Everson Junker, political scientist

We’ve talked about a public option in health careBut what about for the banks?
Thanks to Michael Moore we have this case study.

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Arizona May Day Immigrant Rights Protest - 27:21  

Thousands Gather For May Day, Immigrant Rights Rally In Arizona
with
Isabel Garcia, Director of the Pima County Legal Defenders and Co-chair of the Coalition de Derechos Humanos, Arizona
and
Leilani Clark, Youth Organizer, Coalition de Derechos Humanos

Immigrants rights organizers report on the tens of thousands of immigrant rights demonstrators who rallied on May Day in Arizona to protest the tough new immigration law 1070, and state and federal law enforcement harassment of Arizona’s immigrants, as they demand that stalled legislative reforms in Congress proceed.

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