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

Showing posts with label Communication Workers of America. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Communication Workers of America. Show all posts

Workers Strike Against Verizon’s War On Union Rights & Protections - 28:32  

Workers Say Hell No To Verizon’s War On Union Rights & Protections
with

Pete Sikora, Strike Coordinator, CWA Region 1

Nearly 40,000 Verizon workers have hit the picket lines, in what would be one of the largest strikes in the U.S. in recent years. The workers, members of the Communication Workers of America (CWA) and International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), are fighting aggressive attacks on their compensation, job security and more--carried out by a corporation that has made $39 billion in profits over the past three years, but won't be satisfied until it breaks the power of their unions.  Verizon is attacking the workers medical, pensions, disability, overtime and is attempting to rescind “Article 8”, which protects the workers’ right to show up to work in the same place, every day, a reasonable distance from where they live.  Verizon’s proposed contract would also allow for closing more call centers and transferring the workers up to 80
miles from their current job sites, as well as opening the door to increased international outsourcing.  And, while there is already a two-tier system for job security the proposed contract would eliminate job security no matter how long you’ve been with the company.  Verizon is seeking to transform the company to be more oriented to Wireless and modeled more on the workplace culture of
Wireless, which is overwhelmingly nonunion.  But, the workers say you can’t break our backs and assert the power of the union to protect against the bosses voracious drive for profits and control.  


Plus, a special message from Bernie Sanders from the union picket line and discussion on why CWA supports Sanders for President. 

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Verizon Dodges All Taxes - 26:19  

TAXES, WE DON’T PAY NO STINKIN' TAXES SAYS VERIZON,
AS THE 99% CRIES FOUL!
With
The Tax Dodgers, OWS Occupy the Boardroom, United NY, Make
the Road NY, Strong Economy for All, NY Communities for Change,
Vocal New York, C.W.A., 99% NY, and other members of the 99%


Verizon Communications has been identified as one of the country’s

worst tax dodgers. Between 2008 - 2010, Verizon actually received
$951 million net in federal tax refunds, our public dollars, making their
effective federal tax rate average to 3% or less. So, an outraged
coalition decided to “occupy” Verizon headquarters to call attention
to the fact that corporations like Verizon, GE, Bank of America, and
others are not paying their fair share of taxes, juxtaposed with a time
when the minimum wage is too low to permit people to pay their bills
and feed their families. The occupiers came to say corporate
‘tax dodgers’ like Verizon, that made over $25 billion in pre-tax US
income, and paid $173 million in compensation to their top five
executives, with $56 million going to their CEO alone – and spending
$52 million for lobbying was obscene while at the same time, since
2008 laying off 20,000 employees.

Meanwhile, in the midst of the occupation, a new sports franchise,
the “Tax Dodgers” had the audacity to show up. One of the players,
claiming to be former Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg introduced the
“Tax Dodgers,” who he explained symbolized the lobbyists and other
groups who likely received a portion of the money that Verizon saved
in taxes, while the occupiers cried foul. Tune in to hear the response
of the 99%ers to Verizon and to the Tax Dodgers, who demonstrated
their agility at stealing bases!


http://www.archive.org/stream/VerizonPaysNoTaxes

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http://www.archive.org/download/VerizonPaysNoTaxes/VerizonTaxesntl2.mp3

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Building Bridges: Occupy Wall St. Protests - Sotheby's, Stop & Frisk, Verizon - 27:58  

All Day, All Week – N.Y.C. Occupy Wall Street Actions
atSotheby’s Auction Lockout,
Harlem Protest Against Stop and Fisk
andVerizon Workers Contract Protest

It’s been a busy week for NYC’s Occupy Wall Street protesters.
Building Bridges brings you coverage of three of the multitude of
actions the've joined with community and labor activists. First we
went to NYC’s posh Upper East Side where Teamster Local 814
art handlers have been locked out for months in a contract dispute
over cutbacks and outsourcing demands by Sotheby’s Auction house
which caters to the 1%. Then uptown to Harlem where hundreds
demonstrated in front of the Harlem 28th Precinct where 33 activists
led by noted author, activist and Princeton Prof. Cornel West and
veteran revolutionary fighter Carl Dix were arrested protesting the
N.Y. Police Department’s racist, illegal, illegitimate stop and frisk
policy which is on track to impact over 700,000 people, mostly Black
and Latino youth, in 2011. Then downtown to Wall Street to protest
for a fair contract for 45,000 Verizon workers whose negotiations are
not going well. Like Sotheby, Verizon is an extremely profitable
company whose demands include cutbacks and outsourcing.


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