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

The Making of a Democractic Economy -28:44  

The Making of a Democractic Economy
with

Ted Howard, co-founder of the Democracy Collaborative,
and
Marjorie Kelly, author of "The Divine Right of Capital", and "Owning our Future" have teamed up to co-author "The Making of a Democratic Economy", a clarion call for a movement ready to get serious about transforming our economic system.


The authors illuminate the principles of a democratic economy through the stories of on-the-ground community wealth builders and their unlikely accomplices in the halls of institutional power. Their book is a must read for everyone concerned with how we win the fight for an economy that’s equitable, not extractive. Now, Marjorie Kelly and Ted Howard to talk about building blocks to economically and politically empower the people.

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Que Viva Puerto Rico Libre - 28:59  

“Our Time Is Now! Que Viva Puerto Rico Libre!”
with
members of El Frente Independentista Boricua, former political prisoners Oscar López Rivera, and Alicia & Lucy Rodriquez


In accordance with the Puerto Rico crisis, El Frente and affiliated organizations called for the dismantling of the corrupt government in Puerto Rico and the start of the decolonization process in the island.  Chanting, our time is NOW!  QUE VIVA PUERTO RICO LIBRE! Hundreds marched to the United Nations to ask the United Nations to invoke United Nations Resolution 1514(XV) and initiate the self-determination decolonization process to achieve Puerto Rican Independence!

The group says they don’t believe in the “statehood” solution to Puerto Rico. Instead, they favor cancellation of the over $70 billion dollar national debt, reparations, and total sovereignty from the United States.  Puerto Rico is an archipelago in the Caribbean, has been an unincorporated territory of the United States since 1898. Puerto Ricans have been citizens of the United States since 1917.  For the activists in the march, the route to the island’s decolonization is through independence.  “We need to cut the ties of colonialism so that the people in Puerto Rico can make decisions about their land and make decisions to change the dynamic said one protestor.” For Puerto Rican nationalist and former political prisoner Oscar López Rivera, who served almost 36 years in prison the rally posed an opportunity to demonstrate the support for Puerto Rico’s independence within the mainland. “Puerto Rico is the promised land for every Boricua born here, but who feels they belong there (in Puerto Rico),” “We have to be very clear that the purpose of being here today is that we begin to have solidarity between the Puerto Ricans who are here and the Puerto Ricans who are there. The support that is given to Puerto Rico here means a lot.”


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Striking Auto Workers Need and Deserve to Win Big! - 27:38  

Striking Auto Workers Need and Deserve to Win Big!
with
JR Baker, President of Power Train Engine UAW Local 774 in Tonawanda, NY
and
Mike Elk, Senior Labor Reporter and founder of Payday Report
and
Nelson Lichtenstein, director of the Center for the Study of Work, Labor and Democracy at the University of California

Anyone who understands the need for the United States to reduce its stratospheric levels of economic inequality and to give its workers a boost into the middle class has to be rooting for the United Auto Workers (UAW) members on strike now at General Motors (GM).  The UAW union members organized a strike against GM in an effort to improve wages, reopen idled plants, add jobs and narrow the pay difference between new hires and veteran workers.  Meanwhile GM is pushing its employees to pay a greater portion of their health care costs, and to increase work force productivity and flexibility in factories.

“Striking autoworker President JR Baker said “striking is uplifting because we’re making a stand. We’re not accepting concessions from a company posting billions of dollars of profit. And because we’re all together, there’s safety in numbers. We’re standing up for ourselves in solidarity.”  The UAW union went on strike at G.M., sending nearly 50,000 members at factories across the Midwest and the South to picket lines. Strikers are hoping to make up ground lost since the UAW agreed to two-tier wages in 2007, followed by the Great Recession and the auto bailout, when GM got $50 billion from the taxpayers and even more concessions.  There are also 550 janitorial workers that do sanitation and 'non-strategic' facility work on site that are on strike as well, who haven’t seen a raise in years.  These workers top out at $15.18 an hour and are UAW members within the same local.  GM has hired third-party companies to come in and do sanitation and facility work, so there are now scabs at the work sites as well.The auto industry remains crucial to the economy, counting some 220,000 people who work to manufacture cars. According to the Alliance of Auto Manufacturers, the broader vehicle industry supports 9.9 million jobs and historically accounts for about 3 percent of gross domestic product, so you’d better bet that a win, indeed a big win for the UAW would be a shot of adrenelin for the union movement and it’s up to us to get on board that union train standing in Solidarity Forever! 


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Youth Strike for Climate Justice - 28:59  

Youth Strike for Climate Justice

Four million protesters around the globe, led by youth, declared the time has come for action on climate change. Two hundred and fifty thousand marched and rallied in New York and we’re Building Bridges to those exuberant youth activists who led the way, and we all—young and old and everywhere in between—followed. We’re building bridges and fighting alongside the student leaders of the US Youth Climate Strike, the organizers of the Sunrise Movement, and other climate-focused groups to push the climate crisis into the center of the 2020 debate and propel the bold vision of a Green New Deal in Congress and across the country.  Friday, Sept 20th  was incredible—a vision of people power around the world—and we’ll bring you the highlights from the rally stage and from the throngs who took to the streets – nay took over the streets to leave you as inspired as it left us, and we’re betting as a result you’ll be ready to do more.

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