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

Building Bridges: Malalai Joya - an Afghan Woman Who Dared to Speak Out - 28:17  

A Woman Among Warlords: The Extraordinary Story of
an Afghan Woman Who Dared to Speak Out
with
Malalai Joya

Malalai Joya, is an extraordinary young woman who helped establish a free medical clinic and orphanage in her impoverished home province of Farah; and a constitutional assembly in Kabul, Afghanistan.  She became the youngest person elected to Afghanistan’s new Parliament, but in 2007 was suspended for her persistent criticism of the warlords, drug barons and their cronies.  She has survived four assassination attempts and now sleeps only
in safe houses, accompanied at all times by armed guards.  Malalai takes us inside her important and insufficiently understood country, explaining the desperate day-to-day situations its remarkable people face at every turn, and recounts some of the many acts of rebellion that are helping to change it. A controversial political figure in one of the most dangerous places on earth, Malalai Joya is a woman of tremendous grit and determination, a sheroe in the struggle for self-determination, for peace and justice.

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Former Mexican Guest Workers Seek $500 Million In Stolen Pensions - 26:32  

Former Mexican Guest Workers Seek $500 Million In Stolen Pensions 
with
Alianza de Ex-Braceros del Norte, a campaign affiliated with the International Migrants Alliance, a coalition of grassroots migrant organizations

A caravan of ex-braceros from Mexico in what they’re calling the Historic March for a Historic Debt came to the United Nations to denounce the human rights abuses of Enrique Pena Nieto’s administration that continue to this day.  The 
Bracero Program, established by the US and Mexican governments in 1942, was the country’s first guest worker program. The delegation of ex-braceros are calling public attention to the fact that millions of these workers, many of whom have died or are living under poor conditions, have yet to receive the 10% taken from their paychecks in promised pensions.  They are also calling for just immigration reform 
in the US because as the first guest workers, the ex-braceros can testify how guest worker policies legalize slavery and abuse. Currently, the Obama administration is 
pushing for a guest worker program as part of its Comprehensive Immigration Reform agenda.

http://archive.org/stream/FormerMexicanGuestWorkersSeek500MillionInStolenPensions 
play stream
http://archive.org/download/FormerMexicanGuestWorkersSeek500MillionInStolenPensions/bracerosntl.mp3
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The I Am Troy Davis Campaign To Abolish the Death Penalty - 28:17  

The I Am Troy Davis Campaign To Abolish the Death Penalty
with
*  Kimberly Davis,  Troy's sister
*  Jen Marlowe, author I Am Troy Davis
*  Eve Ensler, playwright, activist
*  Yusef Salaam, Central Park 5 and death penalty abolitionist
*  Lawrence Hayes (death row exonoree)
*  Rebel Diaz, RAP cultural worker, activist

Two years ago, the state of Georgia ignored the facts, doubts and pleas of hundreds of thousands of people and killed Troy Davis.  Now on the anniversary of his execution we invite you to listen to Building Bridges and reflect on Troy Davis and his legacy to abolish the death penalty and dismantle our inhumane system of caging human beings – “it will inspire courage in the heart of those who are willing to use their efforts to save lives and increase the quality of life for all people.”  Maya Angelou

http://archive.org/stream/BuildingBridgesTheIAmTroyDavisCampaignToAbolishTheDeathPenalty 
play stream

http://archive.org/download/BuildingBridgesTheIAmTroyDavisCampaignToAbolishTheDeathPenalty/troydavisanniversaryntl3.mp3  

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Iraqi Workers in the Turbulent Middle East - 28:13  

Iraqi Workers in the Turbulent Middle East
with
Hassan Juma’a Awad,  founding member of and President of the Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions   

Building Bridges brings you an exclusive interview with Har labor 
rights, and the place of Iraq in the broader turmoil of the Middle East.ssan Juma’a Awad who was an opponent of the Saddam Hussein regime, a human rights activist, and unionist who was imprisoned by the Ba’athist regime three times for “subversive” activity.  Now, under the current Malaki government, Hassan and 
many others continue to face threats of jail and heavy fines for "threatening the economic interests and stability of the state" for challenging the ill-treatment of oil workers and the give-away of Iraqi oil to private companies.  

Unions played a vital role in the Arab Spring rebellions in Tunisia and Egypt as do the Iraqi workers who are also challenging their government. Hassan Juma’a Awad is a leading force in the movement of Iraqi workers, part of a broad mobilization of civil society organizations struggling to establish a democratic, non-sectarian society in Iraq after the war, with internationally accepted labor rights.  The Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions faces many of the 
same issues we face in the U.S.: struggles against privatization, the right to organize unions without retribution and with legal protection; and for the active role of unions in securing the interests of working people.  Tune in to hear Hassan’s report on the lives of Iraqi workers today, their fight for labor rights, and the place of Iraq in the broader turmoil of the Middle East.


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