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 Radio: United Automobile Workers Sets Its Sight on Mississipp​i Nissan  

United Automobile Workers Sets Its Sight on Mississippi Nissan Plant to Break the Back of Nonunion South
featuring
Sheila Wilson, autoworker, Canton Mississippi Nissan Plant
Raphael Martinez, autoworker, Canton Mississippi Nissan Plant

It is just more than a month since the UAW suffered a bruising defeat at a Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, with workers voting not to join a union in an election widely seen as a test of whether labor unions will gain a foothold in the rapidly growing auto factories of the South.  But, now the attention has now shifted to the more than 5,000-worker Nissan plant in Canton, Miss., where another union effort is gaining steam. This time, union organizers have help from clergy and students across this part of central Mississippi who have joined the campaign, championing cause of the workers and condemning management's intimidation campaign From pulpits, at leafleting campaigns outside Nissan dealerships and at auto industry events in Brazil, Geneva, Detroit and New York, these new organizers have a message we support the workers.  The success or failure of this new tactic could be crucial for the labor movement as it seeks to organize new workers in a region that has become one of the most important battlegrounds for new manufacturing in the U.S. . The UAW also hopes to organize a Mercedes-Benz plant in Alabama, and has requested another vote in Chattanooga. Other unions have their sights on a 7,000-worker Boeing plant in South Carolina.

play stream

download


Read More...
AddThis Social Bookmark Button

The Scottsboro Boys Case Then & The Central Park Five Case Now - 28:21  

Waiting for Justice, The Scottsboro Boys Case Then & The Central Park Five  Case Now
featuring 
Prof. Kwando Kinshasa, author The Scottsboro Boys in Their 
Own Words: Selected Letters, 1931-1950, and Omowale Clay, activist with the December 12th Movement

The Scottsboro Boys in Their Own Words - the prison letters of nine African American youth facing the death penalty, and what they teach us and today's manifestation of Scottsboro the case of the Central Park Five.  Nine African American’s were indicted in Scottsboro, Alabama in 1931 falsely accused of  rape.  Though most of the defendants were barely literate and all of them were teen-agers when incarcerated, over the course of almost two decades they  learned the basic rudiments of effective letter writing and in doing so forcefully expressed a wide range of perspectives on their circumstances, the nature of the case, and falsity of the charges against them. Now Prof. Kwando Kinshasa author of  The Scottsboro Boys in Their Own Words: Selected Letters, 1931-1950, his latest work in his trilogy on the case talks about their survival, 
courage, resistance and political growth, in their own words through their extraordinary letters, and those of their families and attorneys. Prof. Kinshasa is also joined by community activist Omowale Clay to discuss the contemporary parallel to Scottsboro, the case of the Central Park Five, both ensnared by a racist system, both still waiting for justice!  

play stream

download

Read More...
AddThis Social Bookmark Button

Dirt from Under the Golden Arches: Workers Take McDonald's to Court - 26:31  

Dirt from Under the Golden Arches: 
Workers Take McDonald's to Court 
with
Joseph Sellers, plaintiff’s attorney

Fast-food workers hit McDonald's with multiple class-action lawsuits claiming McDonald's is deliberately and systematically stealing employees' wages by forcing them to work off the clock, shaving hours off their time cards and not paying them overtime, among other illegal practices. For workers already struggling to afford the basics, it's nearly impossible to make ends meet. But, McDonald’s— which raked in nearly $5.6 billion in profits last year — doesn't pay workers for all of their hours. Attorney Joseph
Sellers said: “McDonald's has tried to shield itself from liability for these unlawful employment practices committed at its franchise 
restaurants. But we found evidence that McDonald's Corp. had indeed exerted the control over the daily operations at these franchise restaurant that makes it legally, jointly responsible for these unlawful pay practices. We believe it's time that McDonald's accept responsibility for the pay practices in its franchise restaurants as it serves jointly as an employer there.” 

play stream

download

Read More...
AddThis Social Bookmark Button

Immigration Reform for 2014? -27:32  

Taking the Pulse on Immigration Reform for 2014?
featuring
Oscar Chacon, Ex. Dir., National Alliance of Latin American and Caribbean Communities Coalition 



Will there be immigration policy reform in 2014?  The answer, sadly, seems unlikely - at least not the kind of reform that would result in solid, forward-looking public policy.  But, having coming to that reality, advocates remain determined and are  going beyond all the current proposals in Washington and digging even deeper into the structural problems with our outdated, isolationist and fundamentally inhumane policy regime around immigrants and immigration. Along with this process, in the short term activists are increasing their efforts to put a stop to the rampant detentions and deportations that are causing so much pain in immigrant communities and we’ll talk about how both fronts are progressing.

play stream

download

Read More...
AddThis Social Bookmark Button

250 UPS Workers Received Pink Slips; The Newark Schools Crisis  

Two Hundred Fifty UPS Workers Received Pink Slips
featuring 
. Jairo Reyes, fired UPS worker
. Letitia James, NYC Public Advocate
. Tim Sylvester, President Local 802, IBT

United Parcel Services (“UPS”) workers, numerous elected officials and Teamsters Local 804 members in Queens delivered 100,000 petition signatures in support of the 250 drivers whose jobs are on the line. UPS has issued termination notices to the Teamster drivers for participating in a walkout and protest after the company fired a union activist in violation of a signed agreement.  What began as a routine disciplinary matter has become a flashpoint for workers’ rights in New York City. 
*************************
The Current Crisis In Newark Schools
featuring 
Larry Hamm, Chairman, People's Organization for Progress, Newark, NJ

Newark is in the throes of a broadening community based 
resistance of parents, teachers and longtime city residents to draconian efforts to privatize Newark schools without the communities consent by the state imposed superintendent Cami Anderson.  Anderson has proposed public school closings and job cuts, while advancing Charter  schools.  She wants charter chains in five troubled district schools that serve K-8 students. She has proposed charters take over management of the schools entirely.  She is also establishing nine more “renew” schools, in which she will give principals the right to select their own teaching staffs. Larry Hamm analyzes the Anderson plan and what is needed to help preserve and fix Newark’s troubled public school system.

play stream

download

Read More...
AddThis Social Bookmark Button