Immigrant Workers Organizing Breeds Energy And Hope

For Labor Movement
With
. Jacob Horowitz, Lead Organizer, National Guestworker Alliance
and the New Orleans Workers’ Center
. Joseph Sanchez, Focus on the Food Chain, Brandworkers' International
. Gaudalupe Palma Deputy Director, Warehouse Workers United, Inland Empire, CA.

Immigrant workers, documented and undocumented are on the move. They’re organizing for labor rights and infusing the workers’ movement with new energy and creativity. We need to make sure every worker, documented or undocumented is protected by our labor laws and we need immigration reform that allows immigrants to be securely part of our country from day one—able to assert their legal rights, including the right to organize. Over two hundred million people, just about all of them workers and farmers, are part of a great migrant stream, a human bond that connects the countries of the developed and developing world.

Who can see more clearly the operation of the global economy than those workers?  Who has a greater stake in
changing it? Who can help us to change our unions, and stop the hemorrhaging of our workers organizations than immigrant workers? Organizing immigrant workers is so necessary for the survival of our labor movement. If we are serious in wanting to build political power, then we must organize immigrant workers, fight for their rights, and make the movement for social justice one that belongs to all of us, documented and undocumented.
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The Sparks That Ignite Hate: The Growth of American Extremism

With
Chip Berlet, investigative reporter, independent scholar and progressive activist specializing in the study of U.S. right-wing movements

Berlet describes that what happened at the Sikh Temple in Wisconsin is both a hate crime and an act of domestic terrorism and discusses what’s feeding white supremacist radicalization. He’s written scholarly articles on conspiracy
theories, religious apocalyptic aggression, and organizations of racist groups. Berlet examines major terrorist plots and racist rampages that have emerged from the American radical right in the context of mass media’s vilification of a
scapegoated group, governmental policing and military policies and the politics of race and gender hierarchies, that stimulate individual and group aggression. Berlet reminds us that whether the “lone wolf” or leaderless resistance cells on the radical right, they can be likened to the mined canaries, warning us of something toxic spreading the fumes of anxiety through our society.

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http://archive.org/stream/Low-wageWorkersRallyToRaiseMinimumWage  
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Workers in low-wage jobs, car washers, taxi drivers, airport workers, daycare providers, restaurant workers and retail employees joined in solidarity with organized labor, community organizations, religious leaders and politicians to demand better pay, benefits and working conditions for ALL workers. They rallied to call for fair wages on the three-year anniversary of the last increase to the federal minimum wage. The Day of Action in over 30 U.S. cities was in support of legislation in Congress to raise the minimum wage to $9.80 by 2014. The rallies followed on the heel of new data showing that large corporations with more than 100 employees hire the majority of the country’s low-wage workers (66%) – and that their recovery signals it is time to improve wages for the lowest-paid workers. New data from the Economic Policy Institute also shows the wideranging impact a minimum wage raise would have on America’s workers and on improving the economic growth.

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Bringing Home The Gold:
What’s To Love And Hate About The Olympics
with
Dave Zirin
Dave Zarin, writes about the politics of the world’s favorite pastime, sports.  He’s been named one of UTNE Reader’s “50 Visionaries Who Are Changing Our World”.  He’s the winner of Sport in Society and Northeastern University School of Journalism's 2011 Excellence in Sports Journalism Award.  Most recently he collaborated with Olympic icon Dr. John Carlos in writing the book, The John Carlos Story, he’s published Bad Sports: How Owners are Ruining the Games We Love,  A People’s History of Sports in the United States, and Welcome to the Terrordome: The Pain, Politics, and Promise of Sports. Actually he’s the best darn sports-writer in the United States.  Zirin joins Building Bridges to scrape away at the gold surface and reveal some serious Olympic tarnish.   
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