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

Tim Wise: On Trump and Under the Affluence - 28:58  

On Trump and Under the Affluence
with

Tim Wise, America’s foremost anti-racism activist and writer

Tim Wise discusses his new book Under the Affluence, where
he brilliantly engages the roots and ramifications of radical inequality in our nation and then Wise discusses Donald Trump’s
appeal to and how he stokes the flames of white nationalism and
doesn’t spare the liberals reserve in responding to Black Lives
Matters and repudiating racism. 


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Boss Trump Bullies Las Vegas Hotel Workers ; Elections 1948 with Ronald Reagan - 28:56  

Trump Las Vegas Hotel Workers Say He’s Anti-Worker.
He’d Rather Say “YOUR FIRED” than Allow Workers to Unionize!
with

Bethany Khan, Director of Communications, 
Culinary Workers Union Local 226
and Luis Carlos, Banquet food server, Trump Hotel Las Vergas


After a resounding “YES” vote to unionize with the Culinary Workers Union, Local 226, Trump’s Hotel Las Vegas refused to recognize and bargain with the union as required by federal law.  Now, boss Trump has filed objections to the outcome of a free and fair union representation election won by the workers who want a union and have been accused by the federal government of violating labor laws.  And, recently The National Labor Relations Board issued another federal complaint against Trump alleging that his company unlawfully told one employee, “YOUR FIRED”  and discriminated against another based on their union support.  Federal officials maintain that Trump's hotel company engaged in the numerous unlawful practices such as: issuing rules prohibiting workers from communicating with one another and the public;  engaging in surveillance, interrogations and intimidating employees; and suspending and threatening to fire union supporters. 

"If Donald Trump wants to 'Make America Great Again,' said Maria Jaramillo a housekeeper at the Trump Las Vegas ‘he should by negotiating a fair deal with us.”
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Elections 1948
with
Ronald Reagan
Eric Foner- Prof of History, Columbia University


In 1948 Ronald Reagan, then the President of the Screen Actors
Guild, starred in a Radio program sponsored by the International
Ladies Garment Workers Union promoting the candidacy of Harry
Truman in the Presidential elections of that year. You will hear
Ronald Reagan the then unabashed liberal blasting the Republican
Tom Dewey and the Republic Congress for its anti-worker policies
including the Taft-Hartley Act and for promoting policies which
decrease the real income of workers while promoting huge profits
by the greedy corporations. With commentary by Eric Foner placing this watershed election in historical context for today.  


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Protecting Reproductive Rights; “Ain’t I a Woman” - 28:49  

Women Don’t Intend To Fall In Any More Of Your TRAPs
with

Andrew Beck, attorney, ACLU Reproductive Rights Project

Last week women fought to climb out of another TRAP dug for them on their long road for reproductive health and the control of  their bodies. The deepest of TRAPs (Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers), laws that are cloaked in the deceptive language of women’s health, but which actually put women at risk, by shutting down health centers where women can get safe and legal abortions was just argued at the Supreme Court.  The Supreme Court case was the most important abortion case in decades. Inside the court, the justices asked how the law, HB2, will actually “help” Texas women. Meanwhile, outside advocates gathered to demonstrate their support for abortion access, for every woman in every state. Shifts in the power structure of Congress led to promises to strip away access to reproductive health care, and especially abortion.   Laws that make it difficult if not impossible for a woman to get an abortion if she needs one, particularly if she is poor, are increasing at an alarming pace.  At this critical time, we’ll reveal whose behind the TRAPs, what we can expect from the Supreme Court in the wake of this latest anti-abortion case, and most importantly on protecting access to affordable contraception, protecting a woman’s ability to make personal, private decisions about pregnancy and abortion, and fighting pregnancy discrimination. 
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“Ain’t I a Woman”
featuring critically acclaimed actress Vinnie Burrows


In the town of Akron, Ohio in the year 1851, an African American woman delivered a moving speech at the Women’s Convention that would be remembered for its rawness, authenticity, and powerful message and holds as much relevance today as it did then. Sojourner Truth spoke to the Women’s Convention about her experiences and tribulations as not only a woman in that day’s society but as a Black woman.  She established a sense of identity as a victim of discrimination by describing how she faced prejudices as a Black person and as a woman in order to incite an emotional response in her audience and invited her audience, mostly women suffering from their own forms of discrimination, to realize the injustices of which they too are victims.

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The Mine Wars: The Bitter Battle Fought By a “People Made of Steel” - 28:55  

The Mine Wars: The Bitter Battle Fought By a “People Made of Steel”
with
Randall MacLowry, producer and director 

Go inside the coal miners' bitter battle for dignity at the dawn of the 20th century with The Mine Wars. The struggle over the material that fueled Ame rica led to the largest armed insurrection since the Civil War and turned parts of West Virginia into a bloody war zone. At the dawn of the 20th century, coal was the fuel that powered the nation.  Yet few Americans thought much about the men who blasted the black rock from underground and hauled it to the surface.  The Mine Wars tells the overlooked story of the miners in the mountains of southern West Virginia, native mountaineers, African American migrants, and European immigrants who came together in a protracted struggle for their rights.

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Celebrating Puerto Rican Political Prisoner Oscar Lopez Rivera - 27;10  

The ProLibertad Freedom Campaign Invites You to Celebrate the 73rd Birthday of Puerto Rican Political Prisoner Oscar Lopez Rivera
with.  

Jesus Papoleto Melendez, poet
.  Rafael Landron, poet
.  Estela Vasquez, VP, 1199/SEIU
.  Lynne Stewart, former Political Prisoner
.  Bob Lederer, former grand jury resister


Celebrate the birthday of Oscar Lopez Rivera, an imprisoned struggler against colonialism, imprisoned by the U.S., and call for his release.  For the past 34 years, Oscar Lopez Rivera has spent his birthday in prison.  He is in jail because he is  a revolutionary who fought for the independence of Puerto Rico.  Join us we celebrate the life, work, and legacy of this extraordinary man!

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