sexual identity and old age only 2 years older than me dolly would be normal. in the years since plummer remained active on the big screen stepping in to replace kevin spacey in the 2017 felt all the money in the world after spacey was dropped from the movie as a result plummer then aged 88 became the oldest oscar nominee for his role as j. paul getty he survived by his wife elaine and daughter the actor amanda plummer. it's good to have you with us hello adrian fed again here in doha the headlines and i was there at the 1st major street protests have taken place in me on about 6 days off the military seized control of the government thousands marched to the largest city of yangon saturday in anger over the coup of syria's florence lu is monitoring the situation from kuala lumpur. that targeting the internet because they know only

too well themselves just the part that's how wide and how white the power of the internet is the military has used facebook in the months before its crackdown on the ring in 2017 it used that social media platform to spread and sentiment to spread hate speech and its facebook at such a popular platform in myanmar together with twitter and instagram is what a lot of young people use that the military most likely fear that these platforms can be used to organize protests the u.s. secretary of state has called on china to join international condemnation of the military coup in myanmar and to the brink also used his call with beijing's top diplomats to criticize china's human rights record lincoln told yang jia china that america will stand up for democratic values in changing in tibet and hong kong the u.s. state department has to drop its terrorist as it nation for gammons who tease president

biden that highlighted the need to find a diplomatic solution to the war in yemen during his 1st major foreign policy speech the who things were labeled terrorists by the trumpet ministration but humanitarian groups warn that that could affect a deliveries and hamper the peace process farmers in india ramping up their protests against agricultural forms by blocking roads across the country they say the government is using repressive measures to clamp down on protests and african union leaders are meeting by video conference for the annual summit likely to discuss a range of shared concerns including the covert 19 pandemic and the struggle to secure vaccines or so on the agenda will be the conflict in ethiopia's to grey region and growing unrest in the sun hell region and central african republic bodies feel on al-jazeera after the bottom line next.

i am steve clemons i have a question now that the democrats are moving into the white house well the rights of american workers actually improve let's get to the bottom line. compared to much of the developed world the united states is the wild west of labor markets protections for american laborers have eroded unions are shunned by the biggest and richest corporations in the world and workers are all too often the most expendable parts of the corporate equation if capitalism was working right why is it that virtually nowhere in america can a full time minimum wage worker find a 2 bedroom apartment technology continues to move forward disrupting jobs

particularly for large segments of the lesser skilled workforce some really win big but this also creates more and more unstable low paying jobs with few if any benefits today we're honored to speak to a legendary leader who literally spent her life trying to give voice and power to the voiceless and powerless she was born 10 years after women secure the right to vote in america the lords who are to made history along with cesar chavez were both began organizing poor and abused farm workers in california in the 1960 s. and she's not stopped her quest for equality in america ever since in 2012 she was awarded the presidential medal of freedom for advocacy of civil rights workers rights and women's rights by president barack obama she's also originator of the uplifting catchphrase si se puede a yes we can doris who it's a what an honor to have you on with us today i want to read something to you that jared questioner said and ask you to respond to that he said president trump's policies are. policies that can help people break out of the problems that they're

complaining about but he can't want them to be successful more than they want to be successful when you think about american labor american workers i do red flags go off guess definitely because early simply saying that work is only just gunned down. continuously to lead constantly has gone up and end it work it's impossible for them to catch up and even when they talk about a $15.00 an hour minimum wage we know that that minimum wage to keep up with the cost of living should be more like $30.00 an hour and maybe not even more than that maybe $35.00 or $40.00 an hour. because workers cannot make it on a minimum wage of today and workers have to work 2 or 3 jobs just to be able to pay their rent be able to put food on the table a little and try to save money for their children's college education so. in an

impossible dilemma right now because they are not getting this type of support that they should be getting in the 1960 s. when you and cesar chavez you know got out into organizing farmworkers in california and started such a major movement i guess my question today is how do you feel that today differs from that time if at all is the toxicity different is the attitude towards workers different do you feel like there's been a lot of gains made that we can build on but there are so there's still a lot to to do. no i think that work is right and interior deteriorated substantially and we have seen this happen with the fast food workers who are not given a 40 hour work week you know they have turned all temporary workers they come in one or 2 days a week we see this but the best industry we see this will bomb are the one of the nation's major employers who are workers are not given a 40 hour work week so then they don't qualify for health plan. we see what

happened recently in california with proposition 22 when drivers and lift driver isn't all of these good workers were literally have voted through a proposition and in the reason that people voted the way that they did it because he had millions and millions of dollars it was spent in advertising and mailers to get people to vote against workers have many basic labor right and i'm talking about a social security unemployment insurance you know just a basic basic things that work is doing to protect them and yet these giant companies like amazon they sent millions of dollars and over the people in the in the lift owners to prevent workers from having basic labor rights coverage it is just incredible and then recently president trump has been

pushing. for the department of labor to diminish the minimum wage for workers that are brought in from other countries and what this does is got only a diminish is there really just learned also a lessons in wages of the domestic workers weak is what happens to those contract workers that are brought in from other countries d. is for an agriculture the 2 a work h. 2 a workers then it also lowers the wages of the local farm workers. when do you think you're being heard now in in the new team that's coming in with president elect biden and president obama's personal economy heris do you feel that they get it how secure. you know are workers rights with the new team coming in well i think workers' rights are still in prayer and prayer alone i know the president like biden and both camel heritage they both support workers and they support labor unions but at the same time we have seen that the power of the corporate world has

just been is going so immense that it will it will be very difficult for them to be able to change anything and especially they do not know when control of the senate in the judge election so gen generated fit and that judge election is going to determine you know how much the president can actually change and he can't he can change. the people that will run the national labor relations law and appoint people in that respect but in some of the bigger major issues i think it will be very very hard for him we know that he wants to raise a minimum wage to $15.00 an hour and in states like this sounds places where right now the minimum wage is only $7.72 an hour that will help in many places even on the east coast in places like california in the in the west coast it will be the $15.00 an hour really doesn't do that much. part of the doris who wear brand

is going door to door organizing with people personally hearing their worries and speaking to them one on one or one you know to a family and understanding where that's at you know where in the air of coke right now lots of people have suffered in and have been impacted so much has gone on to you know the digital online space how are these how is this time of coded change your work and change the organizing and advocating for labor rights well it is it is really a i think it is very adversely because we do people the people organizing we have meanings in people's homes to call them hostile means would just lead to 6 people maybe 8 at the most and mostly with families and and what we do then is we talk about the issues we talk about how the issues can be solved and then we end by them to come and commit themselves to work on these issues to be able to to improve them

. because we cannot do this and and many of the people that we are most of the people where we're going after law income people many of them are from the immigrant community they don't have a computer is. in a place that they were in didn't have broadband so in that this is a place of the children. now of the schools when close our children have been set back so much because they were not able to to have a hot sponsor 1st computers that they needed to do their work so it's been very very difficult and in the last elections the campus seen going door to door reminding people that they had to vote registering people to vote we did that all on the person the person basis and of course we couldn't do that with a pandemic. we were able to do some work on the census and we did have camus's but it was very very difficult for them to do their work and then people there is so much fear in the community because the president trumps conses attack against

the in-laws especially mexican people who are just terrified up and just even to open the door so it was all of this coming together made it very very hard for residue our work so we had to revert back to doing as much as we could online and we were able to reach a lot of people but then there's a lot of people that we were not able to reach to be able to get information out to folks about the resources that were available to them with the pandemic which is we ran a lot of put best we had to resort to telephone calls and and text seen doing a lot of leaflet in even sending people letters in the mail a to let them know that these are as we sense is a bailable to you so we could get out the information that in order to recruit more people and to motivate more folks come in join the movement the grass was moment it was more difficult i was enjoying the p.b.s.

documentary about you dolores and fascinating but i was also struck by the fact that she didn't understand what a big role bigotry played in the workers' movements campaigns and that the bigotry of of that time the bigotry of today i sort of feel it see it it's a big deal we've seen it in the you know toward floyd murder protests and the racial tensions in america but we've got 60000000 latinos in america right now you're not you're not only just about latino workers or about all workers but my question is how are you been able to deal with the bigotry out there and some of it's been directed towards you. well you know that this is part of unfortunately. american landscape that we signed a letter racism and we just have to make people understand that the reason we do have racism is to somehow be able to justify that you treat people of color differently and how some of their supposedly subhuman are not human not human

enough to be treated the way that white people get cheated and so this is something that we have the dress in our society all levels because we have all of our agencies of government in our institutions how the situations are institutions criminal justice institution these are all you might say tainted by racism and so we have to start dismantling the racism as reverend lawson says dismantle the systems of oppression that exists in our society. and we and workers have to understand that that it's out about them it's about this race assistant that we have in the intense it's america and so that they cannot let that inhibit them or stop them from trying to go forward in trying to improve their own conditions but you know we know that young people especially are demanding change right now they've been marching on the streets they're demanding racial gender and economic

justice and. hopefully the pressure will continue especially on our politicians. to make the laws that we need to have made change this race a system that we have in the meantime we're just have to keep trying to go on and organizing and fighting for themselves as much as they can and in keeping the pressure. on her to change all of this how do you see the state of unions in america when i look at europe and say you know 65 percent of the workforce is is unionized i look at united states you sort of see 10 percent a declining i'm interested in what you think is going to be needed to either give unions an uptick or to give labor in some other form the kind of power it needs to get to the equilibrium it needs to have. i think that's the big question just as a $64.00 question and we know that the corporate power in the united states is so so excrete and so our poll that it is very difficult for labor unions to be able to

to fight against this power i mean even a little example here in california but the farm workers union. a company that i actually ran the election. begin the negotiations over 20 years ago and united farm workers has not been able to get a contract with that company and they prefer to spend millions of dollars literally millions of dollars to prevent workers from having a union contract and better wages better health conditions or pension plans for that and other those millions that they could have given to the workers directly in some of these benefits they use that money to buy unions and so the unions are really hamstrung right now what are the laws that would make it very simple for unions to get recognition would be to. have card check elections if the concha is signature would be good enough to be able to get recognition and if your signature

is good enough to buy a house buy a car get married get a divorce. but then it should be good enough to be able to represent your union and not only that but like the current is in months or a living gets representation of the employer's interest of bond and. every legal option that they have to work from getting a contract and when we see what's happening what like wal-mart and and who are in left in these companies here they say they don't want to work so they have representation they don't care about their workers all they care about is making money and this is something that is very insidious and cynical and wrong in the united states of america and the thing is that we do not have labor unions if we do not have a strong middle class which is what labor unions delivery in the create

a middle class and if we do not have a middle class if we don't have a democracy. and when we see the erosion of our democracy and then once it's america that is where is an important tool and say this is happening because the working people do not have the power that they need to have in our society so it's a big dilemma and a big threat and we have to figure out how we're going to change this and we have to pass laws that are going to help only be unions because at this point in time they need a lot of support and we have a lot of unions in america you know richard trumka the a.f.l.-cio randi weingarten of the american federation of teachers you know mary kay henry at sci you know lots of lots of union leaders out there and i guess my question to you perhaps in an unfair one is what are is there something they're getting wrong is there something is there a blind spot that unions have about how to become more vital more successful in this equation no but if you keep losing the question is how do you begin

reorganizing to win more you have thoughts on that. well let me just mention mary kay henry was a was service employees international union and got into the teachers' union remember these are public institutions service employee represents a public work is pretty much the people that work for the government. of the state or federal. but the thing is that the other unions and they are much stronger you might say the unions a represent just a regular working people like in construction. the auto workers etc etc well the employees have been everything that they can to weaken labor unions and it's going to take a lot of laws to be able to support them for instance a lot of the industry then look to the south where you have right to work laws were getting better getting rid of those what right to work laws in the south they place

like texas would actually make it easier for workers to be able to join labor unions in the 1st place but the other thing is is that the employers they lie and they see ok when i was referring to what happened here with publishing 22 in california. and that it took away any possible right of work as a workers who drive the supers and lives and these are they getting driver's door dash it wouldn't it wouldn't they and they did this by lying literally to the to the public spending so you know when you're dealing with people who lie cheat and deprive their workers of been of theirs and they should have you know because of all of the money that they have to deceive the public this makes it a very unfair game you know in you don't have a referee in the middle so the only repertory of this would be our governments that so many of the people in government and they are also the one with the need to say

that great crudely bought ah by these large employers so we've got to bring honesty and trust and and justice and caring for workers back into our life and into our government and and then i think that it's a start electing progressive that are going to fight for workers and they're not going to give in to the pressure of these major corporations that are doing all of this damage to work is into our society. you know it's fascinating to talk about the right to work laws because people are to judge who is now going to has been nominated to be secretary of transportation has said specifically he wants to work to roll those back so we'll have to see what it is you have to tell me what you're going to visit the transportation secretary people to judge and of course the president and try and work on those right to work laws. and it's good that you mention that too because we also have which have been in the global in the global world right where so many jobs that we know have been shipped overseas and i

haven't seen anything now in terms of the last nafta that the 2nd after that was passed that's going to be helping american workers in even those countries like mexico. and the mexican partners who have been devastated by nafta and when they talk about illegal immigration i think it was something like 80000000 of their work is it came from mexico commit united states. these are farmers these are small family farmers will in no way could compete with the agribusiness that we have in the united states mexico is where the corn was right was conceived back in mexico and today in mexico they import more corn than the united states and what they grow in mexico and so we can see this imbalance in i know that many of the organizations like public citizen they work on global issues you know they talk

about these in so you have what is it that is suffering not only in the countries where we are exporting our goods but we have this thing happening to our work is in that is safe so we can see up once safely say that work is all over the world is suffering because of these global trade agreements that are there they are very very helpful to the corporations but they are very harmful to workers. you know i have to ask because you have the benefit of long experience out there fighting battles and whatnot and i just was amused and kind of. excited and jealous that you are that your own presidential medal of freedom ceremony was shared with people like tony morrison and bob dylan and all of you when you look at you you look at the folks that were up there live through times of great division in the country great divide and tension and part that's what the president was

awarding and highlighting when he did this but i also know that you were in the room when robert kennedy was assassinated when you look at this time when people feel like it's been a horrific time in america i just love to know how you see it is this just like any other decade where we have problems or is this time worse than others. well you know i was born during the depression. as a child and during the depression and i remember as so many things that happened during the depression i got my dancing lessons and tap dance in my tree while in lessons and i know all of the great art work that was created during the depression and that's how we got social security and when workers got the right to organize then i lived to world war 2 where my father and my brothers all had to go to the service and when we came out of that we had a large numbers of women that went into the workplace and it never happened before

we had a soldiers that were coming back from the war to go to college free you know so you know there were things that happened after each one of these crisis in our country and i do feel that now that we're highlighting some of these issues that we have lived with for centuries you know that racism this sexism you know and now we have the new issue of climate change to it which is a brand new one for us here that i do feel very very hopeful and the reason i feel hopeful is because. young people people it took to the streets and not just young people. and people of all ethnic groups you know we had white people and brown people and by people in asian people they were all marching for economic racial and gender justice and i do see that this is going to happen that is going to change we just saw this last election that you had more people voting than any time in the history of the united states of america and that's where the pandemic where people

like ourselves couldn't go out and register people to vote and cameras to get to people on the boat all that this happened and and we see that now we have all of these tools like like the internet and these tiktaalik in instagram that all of that especially the young people haven't their disposal and we've got young leaders like grant you know ows fighting for climate change m.-a gonzalez florida who's fighting to get rid of gun violence and. i think it's a remarkable moment in history right now and i feel very hopeful because the spotlight is on all of the things that we need to change the injustices against people of color against women against working people against students aren't occasional system that needs to be completely revamped and remade so i kill very very hopeful because i think that the energy is out there there are young people

especially that are committed to make these changes it's going to happen it's going to happen and i think those people. especially the politicians stand in the way they're not going to be there for very long they might well have. cycles but eventually they're going to have the they could have to. begin to get into the movement to do the right thing or. or the lords who are today an iconic labor and civil rights advocate i just want to thank you that i want to tell my viewers that you're not just about hope you're about doing an action it's real honor to have you want to show today thank you so much. thank you it's my pleasure and thank you for inviting me so what's the bottom line i guess it's human nature for the well off to look down on hard working people at the bottom of the economic ladder but things were bad before the pandemic for millions of americans and now people have to make their way with less and less the lawrence who at this life work has been the struggle to turn this around to secure respect and pay and rights for workers and she's so inspiring and she's absolutely right democrats or republicans

haven't been turning things around for workers but it's the laura says there's always hope well we will be watching and that's the bottom line. when the going gets tough many bangkok slum dwellers are forced to borrow. she may be kinder than your average money lender. she may have more patience. but make no mistake. she means business. friendly loan

shark part of the viewfinder asia series on al-jazeera. is there a screw tell us or in a case where somebody even compensated civilians who we listen to the only music you hear is your own the most beautiful music in the world is silent we meet with global news makers and tweak the stories the back to 00.

0. 00 am fully back to bill in doha with a look at our main stories on al-jazeera the 1st major street protests have taken place in myanmar 6 days after the military seize control of the government and arrested its civilian leaders. in the largest city of young gone on saturday angry about the call drawing 3 has more from kuala lumpur while we had hundreds of people came out on the streets of yangon many of them wearing red which is the color of the national league for democracy on suits.