National Radio Project

Los Angeles’ garment district is notorious for sweatshop conditions, abuse, and the outright theft of earned wages.  Yet the name-brand clothes that some of us are wearing right now, may have been produced in factories like these. On this edition of Making Contact we’ll take you on a trip through LA’s garment district.

In 2012, fast food workers in NYC kicked off a movement that has exceeded all expectations, and changed the conversation about the minimum wage.

On this edition, low paid workers tell the story of the fight for 15, the exploding nationwide movement for fair wages.

Featuring:

• Alvin Major, KFC employee and original NYC striker
• Richard Wilson, Walmart employee
• Bernardo Monteo, Chanda Roberts, Jayla Mosley; fast food workers
• Mary Kay Henry, SEIU President
• Ken Jacobs, chair of the UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education
• Thomas Geoghegan, author of “Only One Thing Can Save Us: Why America Needs A New Kind of Labor Movement“

From Norco, Louisiana to Flint, Michigan to Los Angeles, California – environmental racism is real. On this edition of Making Contact, we look at polluting industries in Northeast and South L.A.

We begin with a story by Making Contact’s Community Storytelling Fellow Ivan Rodriguez, followed by an interview with journalist Aura Bogado and Los Angeles County Supervisor Hilda Solis.

Women Rising Radio #30 profiles women fighting slavery, trafficking and forced labor globally.

January 2016 marked the end of China’s one child policy—a regime of family planning policies and enforcement that scarred generations of parents and children. On this edition of Making Contact, China correspondent Gady Epstein speaks with Mei Fong, author of One Child:The Story of China’s Most Radical Experiment, and Barbara Demick, journalist and former Beijing bureau chief for the Los Angeles Times.