Building Bridges: Your Community & Labor Report

National Edition

Produced by Mimi Rosenberg & Ken Nash

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11,234 Say No, And 11,227 Say Yes –

With 22,000 Ballots Cast, The TWU Workers Say No Deal!

With

Ainsley Stewart – V.P. Car Equipment, TWU Local 100

Tim Schermerhorn, Rank and File Activist, TWU, Local 100

In a squeaker of a vote, one month to the day after turning millions into pedestrians, the city’s transit workers rejected their new three-year contract.

TWU Pres. Toussaint said members were worried by Gov. Pataki’s threat to veto a 0 million refund of pension plan contributions while rank and file

members indicate they were upset by a provision that would require workers for the first time to contribute 1.5 percent of their income toward their health

plan. While MTA Chairmen Peter Kalikow indicated he will seek binding arbitration and Toussaint said the union was ready to “go back to the drawing board” we’ll ask those who turned down the contract what they want and how they will advocate for a better contract.

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Two Missing Workers Are Found Dead in West Virginia Mine - Three Weeks After Twelve Men Were Killed at the Sago Mine

With

Tony Oppegard, Former General Counsel, Kentucky Dept. of Mines.

An agonizing two-day wait came to a tragic end when rescue workers found the bodies of two miners who were trapped by a fire that began on a conveyor belt

900 feet underground. Nineteen miners had escaped after a fire deep in the bowels of the Aracoma Coal Mine in Melville, W. Virginia .The blaze had resisted

firefighting efforts and spread from mine equipment into the coal seam itself, further complicating rescue efforts hampered by thick smoke and roof collapse.

With this most recent tragedy we are again reminded that mining remains one of the world’s most dangerous jobs. We’ll provide an update on the investigation of this disaster and find out what’s happened with the Government probe of the

tragedy at the Sago mine, and what needs to be done to safeguard the lives & health of miners

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To Download or listen to this 28 minute program

go to

http://www.radio4all.net/proginfo.php?id=16267

For more information contact Ken Nash - knash@igc.org

Building Bridges is regularly broadcast over WBAI, 99.5 FM in the N.Y.C Metropolitan area on Mondays from 7-8pm EST and streamed and archived at www.wbai.org

Building Bridges National Edition is regulary broadcast over WVJW- Benwood, WV; KRFP, Moscow, ID; KCSB, Santa Barbara, CA; .; WXOJ, Northampton, MA: KSOW, Cottage Grove, Oregon ;WKNH ,Keene, New Hampshire as well as internet stations Radio

Veronica, The Journey Radio, and Seattle Radical Radio