OUR Walmart Black Friday Protesters

Declare It Red Letter Day For Workers!
With
. Elaine Rosier, Walmart worker, Miami Florida
. Gabe Teneyuque, Walmart striker, St. Paul, Minnesota
. Secaucus, New Jersey Walmart worker allies
 
Walmart faced not only a throng of shoppers on Black Friday but what a union-backed group, Organization for Respect at Walmart, (“Our Walmart”) said was the biggest wave of protests that the retailer had ever seen; 1,000 stores had demonstrations in 46 states, ranging from a couple of community supporters’ asking to talk with store managers about raising wages to raucous demonstrations in California, New Jersey and Washington that each attracted

hundreds of people. “In its 50-year history, Wal-Mart has never seen strikes like those we’re seeing today,” said Lynsey Kryzwick, a spokeswoman for OUR Walmart, which works closely with the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union. “It will be hard for Wal-Mart to ignore all these workers and their allies calling for change at Wal-Mart from improving the low wages and

unfair working conditions to fighting retaliation. Our Walmart, has filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board, saying that Wal-Mart had violated federal laws against intimidating workers who seek to strike or otherwise protest by saying there could be consequences — in the form of dismissals, demotions or reduction in work hours.

http://archive.org/stream/BuildingBridgesOurWalmartBlackFridayProtesters

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Health Care Workers Tell Bloomberg:
We’re Not Meeting Sandy Survivors’ Health Needs   

Members of the NYS Nurses Association, NY Physicians for a National Health Program, DC 37, Local 436 of the United Federation of Nurses and Epidemiologists, and other health care organizations, along with Occupy Wall Street demonstrated at City Hall protesting that thousands of New Yorkers who are homeless, or trapped in their homes without power, without elevator service, and heat and hot water are experiencing a health emergency. The healthcare responders recounted their experiences and articulated the medical services needed for the hurricane’s victims in Staten Island, the Rockaways, Coney Island, and Red Hook. They also emphasized the need to expedite reopening local clinics and Coney Island and Bellevue Hospitals to provide care for their

communities. 

 

http://archive.org/stream/BuildingBridgesRadioSandySurvivorsHealthEmergency
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Chris Hedges

Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt

Chris Hedges, Pulitzer Prize winning correspondent set out to look at those areas in America that have been offered up for exploitation in the name of profit, progress, and technological advancement, to show what life looks like in places where the marketplace rules without constraints, where human beings and the natural world are used and then discarded to maximize profit – the result, Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt.

Hedges talks about the western plains, where Native Americans were sacrificed in the race for land and empire. He then travels to the old manufacturing centers, and the coal fields that fueled the industrial revolution, but now lie depleted and in decay and then looks at the slave-like conditions of immigrant farm workers.

Hedge's talks about the people at the bottom of the American economy and argues that without profound change poverty will deepen and flood the nation. He then talks reversal and remedy, how to bring people out in protest, and rebuilding the kind of movements that protect us, such as Occupy, where a new generation revolted against the corporate state of by and for the 1%, that bequeathed to us an economic, political, cultural and environmental catastrophe.

http://archive.org/stream/BuildingBridgesRadioChrisHedges-DaysOfDestructionDaysOfRevolt  play stream
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A Building Bridges Special Report

On Hurricane Victims in NYC's Coney Island:
After The Storm: Coney Island’s Beleaguered Residents Remind Us That The Real Devastation Is Continuously Drowning In Poverty

Coney Island’s residents wander about amidst the mounds and mounds of sand, pushed blocks back into their streets and homes by Sandy in this oceanfront community. And there’s the historic Nathans eatery, its boarded up plywood sheets have been partially pried loose by wind and rushing tides that threatens to ripe dangerously down the streets. Every-where is a landscape of small stores with their fronts blown out, ominous high water marks ringing what’s left of their exteriors and their inners just dangling wires wiping about furiously from the frigid, ocean  wind  blasts. Everywhere are the cherished furnishings and belongings of the areas residents, now all jumbled together and tossed on the streets looking like the carelessly left playthings from a child’s dollhouse.

Disabled, elderly residents are still trapped on the uppermost floors of their public housing developments, without heat and light, without water, amidst the power outage. Other tenants and low-income home owners in the area have lost all their life’s possessions. And there are so many without food, and who face the prospect of prolonged homelessness. Coney Island’s residents were drowned out by a hurricane, but before Sandy they were as well drowning in poverty, and now it seems they’ve been hung out to dry, by a plutocracy who could very well provide storehouses of food immediately and build “we the people” veritable Taj Mahal’s in which to live our lives.

Government has virtually ignored the residents of Coney Island and mass media has covered them almost exclusively to sensationally and raise the fraudulent specter of looting. But, there’s another reality as well, there amongst the devastation are brigades of youth tirelessly shoveling the sand back, bringing the scarce resources, bottled water an other necessities they can find to their neighborhoods. Again and again they’ve climbed the stairs to assist and offer their concerns, refusing to leave or ignore their sisters and brothers –the power of the people's collective will and energies provides fortitude and hope for one of our communities, fighting to rise above the tides.

http://archive.org/stream/BuildingBridgesHurricaneVictimsInConeyIsland-ASpecialReport  
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