Building Bridges
BUILDING BRIDGES MAY DAY SPECIAL: WORKERS UNITE TO RES
Thursday, May 1, 2014 2:00 PM - 6:00 PM
Building Bridges over WBAI radio, 99.5 FM with Mimi Rosenberg & Ken Nash
streaming @ www.wbai.org
smartphone streaming @ http://stream.wbai.org
& to listen, or download archived shows,
http://archive.wbai.org/show1.php?showid=bbridges
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The American Dream Unraveling: Resisting the Creation of a Sweatshop Nation
Thursday May 1st, Celebrate May Day over WBAI from 2 – 6 pm, when we’ll Build Bridges around the globe for the workers of the world to tell it like it is. You’ll hear from the leaders of the newly formed radical unions, on the move in South Africa, and attend May Day events in Detroit, Arizona and from New York’s Union and Foley Squares. For breaking news and analysis of the state of the working class, we’ll take you there when
Workers of the World Unite over WBAI.
For workers, the recession brought only economic hardship. But, for corporate America, it meant the opportunity to mold the economy into something approximating the Third World model: vast wealth, power and privilege for those at the top, and chronically high unemployment, falling wages, and inadequate or nonexistent social services for the rest of society. The new norm for America is that it has again become a sweatshop nation.
But there has also been increasing protest, particularly by low wage workers and immigrant workers in such areas as the fast food sector (ie. McDonalds), and in retail by the green grocer workers, the car washer workers, and those fighting against major corporations like Wal-Mart. There have been strikes in these areas of work across the country coupled with a growing chorus to increase the minimum wage, enforce the labor laws, and extend new benefits such as paid sick leave to low-wage workers.
These actions are expressions of new models of organizing and organization which emanate from the community sphere and which are then increasingly being supported by traditional labor unions, from the local level to the national AFL-CIO. And, there has been new support from governments from Seattle to New York City to protect basic workers rights and to raise wages of the those at the bottom of the income scale. And, if we’re in luck we'll soon be able to add Newark to this list, if Ras Baraka is elected Mayor in the upcoming election.
So we broadcast this May Day in a time of increasing economic peril, but with a promise of resistance. Building Bridges will bring our audience analysis of the current crisis and future trends, along with the voices that have been raised for immigration reform and economic equality especially at the May Day rallies in New York and other major urban areas of the nation. We’ll provide a comprehensive picture of the issues for and activities of the working class – “They say get back, and we say fight back!”
As always our programming is a tapestry threaded throughout with the culture of the working class - spoken word presentations, music, and dramatic renditions characterizing the blood, sweat, tears and triumphs of working men and women.
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