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

A Mavi Marmara Survivor on The Next Steps to Victory - 28'  

A Mavi Marmara Survivor - The Next Steps Toward Victory
with
Rev. Herbert Daughtry, Pastor House of the Lord Pentecostal Church
and
Kevin Ovenden, a representative from Viva Palestina

When Israeli naval commandos stormed a Turkish ship loaded with humanitarian aid for the people of Gaza. They murdered 9 unarmed passengers. The oldest, Ibrahim Bilgen, was 61. the youngest, Furkan Dogan, a U.S. citizen born in Troy , N.Y., was just 19. Kevin Ovenden, international organizer working to break the blockade of Gaza was an eyewitness to this horror and spoke at a packed meeting in Brooklyn’s historic House of the Lord Pentecostal Church, pastured by the Rev. Herbert Daughtry. He spoke not only about the horror he witnessed butabout the next strategic steps forward to ending the blockade and freeing Palestine.

On June 14, City Council speaker Christine Quinn, Reps. Jerry Nadler, Anthony Weiner, Carolyn Mahoney, Charles Rangel & Manhattan BoroughPresident Scott Stringer gathered in Times Square at the behest of the "Jewish Community Relations Council." They shamelessly demanded that the State Department investigate Kevin Ovenden and the other invited speakers for "ties to terrorism." As a result, another witness to the atrocity a former Turkish parliament member and human rights activist Ahmet Faruk Unsal, was not allowed to board a plane from Turkey to join the event at the House of the Lord Church. This was a clear attempt to not only deny the passengers' right to speak but to deny the people of the United States theright to hear their words.

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NYC Municipal Workers Fighting Back - 27:58  

Selections from Building Bridges Live Coverage
OF MASS RALLY OF NYC PUBLIC WORKERS
AGAINST THE CUTS!

With
. Michael Mulgrew, Pres., United Federation of Teachers
. Judy Wessler, Dir., Commission on the Public’s Health System
. John Samuelsen, Pres. , Transport Workers Union, Local 100
. Ed Ott, Distinguished Lecturer, Murphy Inst.of Workers Studies,
CUNY; former Executive Director, NYC Central Labor Council

. David Jones, Pres. & CEO of the Community Service Society

A coalition of municipal labor unions, turned out tens of thousands of
workers and community activits to protest job losses and service cuts
that will permanently alter the lives of NYC workers and residents.
Mayor Bloomberg is sharpening his carving knife and on the chopping
block are thousands of civil service jobs: educators, transit workers,
public health, social service workers, and library workers. The loss of
these jobs mean reduced transit services, education, healthcare, fire
services, and the myriad services provided by public sector workers.
And, as the city hemorrhages public sector jobs and services, it
aggressively advances the privatization of public sector jobs and the
services they provide. It’s an all out attack on public sector unions and
the workers, and benefits those unions fought for. So in the fight for its

life, public workers and their unions say hell no to pro-corporate
policies that serve the wealthy at the expense of the majority.

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Live Coverage of NYC Public Worker Protest at City Hall  

Play 3-5 pm

Play 5-6pm

Above are links to the
WBAI (99.5FM) Live coverage of June 16 labor rally
against budget cutbacks at City Hall.
Hosted by Ken Nash and Mimi Rosenberg, co-hosts of
"Building Bridges: Your Community and Labor Report,"
regularly heard Mondays at 7pm.


You can also download sound by going to the WBAI archives
http://archive.wbai.org/allshows.php
for June 16 3-6 pm

A coalition of municipal labor unions, are fed up and can’t take it anymore –
they’re saying that job losses and service cuts will permanently alter the lives
of City workers and the city’s residents. The Mayor is sharpening his carving
knife and on the chopping block are thousands of civil service jobs, educators,
transit workers, public health and social service workers, and library workers.
The loss of these jobs mean we are all faced with reduced transit services,
education, healthcare, and fire services, and the myriad services provided
by public sector workers. And, at the same time the city hemorrhages public
sector jobs and services, it aggressively advances the privatization of public
sector jobs and the services and resources they provide. Hey, it’s an all out
attack on public sector unions and the workers, and benefits those unions
fought for. So in the fight for its life, public workers and their unions say hell
no to pro-corporate policies that serve the wealthy at the expense of the
majority of New Yorkers.

The broadcast included the voices from the demonstration including
speeches, special interviews, and analysis of recent budget decisions
of Mayor Bloomberg, the City Council, and Governor Paterson, and the
State Legislature in Albany.

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NYS Domestic Workers Will Win - 27'  

Domestic Workers Urge NYS Pass Fair Labor Standards In 2010
with
Barbara Young, Domestic Workers United, Ed Ott, labor activist, Hector Figueroa, Sec. Treasurer Local 32BJ, George Gresham, 1199 SEIU Pres., Esther Cooper Jackson, civil rights activist, State Senator Diane Savino, N.Y. City Councilwoman Gale Brewer

Legendary Civil Rights-era activist Esther Cooper Jackson, distinguished labor activists alongside of cheering nannies, housekeepers, and elderly caregivers raised their voices in tribute to domestic workers and demanded basic benefits, such as paid leave, and notice, & protection from discrimination by passage of Senator Diane Savino’s andAssemblyman Keith Wright's Domestic Workers Bill of Rights which would make it the first, and hopefully not the last state to give justice to domestic workers.Recently both the NYS Senate and Assembly passed differing versions of the domestic workers bill of rights. The bill is in conference committee and then goes to Governor Patterson for his signature or veto.

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Jeff Halper: Israelis In Palestine Resist House Demolitions - 28'  

An Israeli In Palestine: Resisting Dispossession
with
Jeff Halper, Founder, Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions

The actions of the brave band of activists from the Freedom flotilla
to break Israel’s blockade of gaza has resulted in worldwide
condemnation of the blockade and the suffering it has caused. But
what of the wider apartheid policies of the state of Israel towards
the Palestinian people both within Israel and in the occupied
territories? Drawing on his many years of directly challenging Israel’s
treatment of the Palestinians, Jeff Halper offers one of the most
insightful analyses of the occupation you’ll hear. Halper discusses
how Israel can not maintain its exclusive Jewish character without
imposing on the Palestinian population policies of ethnic cleansing,
occupation and discrimination, expressed most graphically in its
ongoing demolition of thousands of Palestinian homes, both inside
Israel and in the Occupied Territories. His voice cries out to be
heard as does the plight of the Palestinian people.


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George Galloway - Israel, Palestine and Obama - 27:59  

Israel, Palestine and US
With
George Galloway, former British Parliament Member
and founder Viva Palestina

We present a wide ranging interview with George Galloway on the
key role of the U.S. maintaining Israeli apartheid policies towards the
Palestinians. Galloway talks about the recent challenges to the Israeli
blockade of Gaza, possible changes in U.S. public opinion and the
Obama Adminstration’s views on Israel and Palestine as well his

evolving views on a one state solution.

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