bailouts countries in the euro of which britain isn't a part i speak to alex kenny from the national union of teachers here he's that's certainly people we didn't play for the crisis we didn't think of the banking crisis and they bailed out the things i'm now working. with. we have an unprecedented thirty three taking action many of whom are going to tell you. just how strongly people feel about. the often not the strike. how many thanks but i guess this is destructive it's not going to take me to see if you'd like to see me strike. and that was our to his own laura smith with the latest from london and as we just saw the government in the u.k. wants workers to pay more for their pensions and retire later unions though are saying no way now unions certainly face similar challenges in the u.s. but we have got to see anything close to the backlash we're seeing abroad why not labor journalist mike elkins here to talk more about this thanks for coming on the show mike so why can't americans come together for a collective a day of strikes like we're seeing in the u.k. where i think the big issue that you l

that britain isn't part of the year is there an early i speak to you alex kenny from the national union of teachers here's what he said about that. certainly people are saying we didn't pay for the courses we didn't pay for the banking crisis and they bailed out the banks are now working people are being made to pay for they won't accept. we have an unprecedented thirty three unions taking. money who've never taken strike action before we will see just how strongly people feel about. the government but of course in the aftermath of the strike expect at this thing the impact of it how many well placed the place was that was the disrupted it's not looking like a taking notice it is looking like they will be moved right you can follow what's happening today on our twitter feed r.t. london very week we'll be staying here to see how it's about. as you say more from you throughout the day live from london thank you very much indeed for that update . well still ahead this hour growing pressure turkey announces economic sanctions against its former ally syria including a halt to weapons deliveries design p

striking i think the best person stories my guess based out here is alex kenny from the national union of teachers. strike so concerned with cantons alex heney what's wrong with the pension plan the government's proposed that the government is proposing to make people pay fifty percent more towards their pension work longer as long as sixty or you know a lot of cases a smaller pension when they do retire having. a look only would have to have that moment when they brought forward no evidence they can't justify by looking at our pension schemes i mean these changes are necessary because our pension schemes are affordable and sustainable and what about the the availability of money i mean we see the government constantly saying it just isn't any money yet and yes they are. bailing out you raised a net in which we have essentially no interest is that even embassy will certainly people are saying we didn't pay for the crisis we didn't pay for the banking crisis the banks are now working people are being made to pay for and they won't accept it and of course people have said to me in the lead up to thi

fact that the person isn't part of the year is a fairly i speak to alex kenny from the national union of teachers here's what he said about the us certainly people are saying we didn't pay for the crisis we didn't pay for the banking crisis and they bailed out the banks and now working people are being made to pay for and they won't accept. we have an unprecedented thirty three unions taking action money of whom have never taken strike action before we will see just how strongly people feel about the government but of course in the aftermath of the strike be exact i think thing the impact of how many but this is the place was that this is the destructive it's looking like i think it's if it is looking like it will be moved right you can see what happens dayo not take to be touchy legendary i think we'll be seeing his secrets about the. smith reporting there from london well still ahead for you this hour in r.t. growing pressure turkey announces economic sanctions against its former allies syria including the hopes of weapons deliveries as a science government has reached the end of the road. musc

the euro a day in which support britain isn't a part only i speak to alex kenny from the national union of teachers here with his head about that certainly people are saying we didn't pay for the crisis we didn't pay for the banking crisis and they bailed out the banks and now working people are being made to pay for and they won't accept it so we have an unprecedented thirty three unions taking action many of whom have never taken strike action before and we will see today just how strongly people feel about the government but it closed me off to the strike big thing i think the impact of how many but basically i just think this is a destructive if you look at and i think it's i think it's a i think the mood strikes you can say what happens today i'm not to be touchy i didn't hear you i think they'll be saying hey stick to. your smith reporting there from london and britain has ordered the closure of the iranian embassy there in london and the expulsion of its staff after the u.k. decided to evacuate his own diplomats from the islamic states capital norway has also closed its embassy in tehran wit

that's right i think the best person stuart is my guests at this hour is alex kenny from the national union of teachers the strikes are concerned we can sense alex kenny what's wrong with the pension plan that the government pays day the government is proposing to make people pay fifty percent more towards their pension work longer as long as sixty or a lot of cases a smaller pension. having longer only would have to have that moment brought forward no evidence they can't justify looking at our pension schemes only these changes are necessary because our pension schemes are affordable and sustainable if it's not just the case the government literally won't be able to pull the very generous pensions of public sector workers going forward the average public sector paying. of someone working in local government is five thousand pounds a female local government worker gets a pension of two and a half thousand so they're not gold plated not overly generous but our pensions are affordable in the teacher pension scheme there is a surplus of forty six billion pounds more has been paid into it and been paid out

the year a day in which people rescind isn't a part only i speak to alex kenny from the national union of teachers he was pleased that about that certainly people are saying we didn't play for the crisis we didn't play to the banking crisis and they bailed out the banks and now working people are being made to pay for that and they won't accept it so we have an unprecedented thirty three unions taking action money of whom have never taken so i could go through and we will see just how strongly people feel about the government when it comes to get me off to the strike except fixing the impact of how many place to place but i guess this is a destructive it's not the kind i gotta take i think it's a stick if you like it will be mood strikes. those are to his own laura smith with the latest from london and as we just saw the government in the u.k. wants workers to pay more for their pensions and retire later unions are saying no way now union certainly pay for them a lot of challenges in the u.s. but we have yet to see anything close to the backlash we're seeing abroad why not labor journalist my calc

of kazakhstan. >> "this is america" is made possible by the national education association, the nation's largest advocate for children and public education. the american federation of teachers, a union of professionals. the singapore tourism board. there is something for everyone. singapore airlines, a great way to fly. poongsan corporation, forging a higher global standard. the ctc foundation, the rotondaro family trust. . this year, kazakhstan celebrates its 20th anniversary of independence. on this program, we will learn what it was like before independence 20 years ago, and how oil and a visionary president made kazakhstan the success it is today, and why diversifying its economy will be the key to kazakhstan's even brighter future. >> it was a wild economy and business environments. today, we have a lot of public companies. our businessmen are doing international joint ventures with international companies. our people as a whole became much more open-minded, outspoken, free people. we are much different than what we were before. >> has that been exciting to be a part of? >> i was 20 years old when kazakhstan became independent and our innovation -- generation of businessmen did

of singapore. >> "this is america" is made possible by the national education association, the nation's largest advocate for children and public education. the american federation of teachers, a union of professionals. the singapore tourism board, th for e singapore airlines, a great way to fly. poongsan corporation, forging a higher global standard. the ctc foundation, afo communications, andthe rotondaro family trust. we will discover why singapore is a great place to live. it has a population of 5 million people and a diverse ethnic makeup. amazingly, everybody seems to along just fine. >> is there a culture that you can put your finger on? >> one has to understand where we come from. we are a nation of many cultures and ethnic groups. singapore is a young nation. we have a long history. we have a history dating back to the british colonial days. we also have a history dating back to the early 14th century. many people from around the world came through the streets in point. some settled down and became the citizens of this country. when the british came, many chinese, indians came along. arabs came along. many others came to make this country what is today. we all bring a bit o

of kazakhstan. >> "this is america" is made possible by the national education association, the nation's largest advocate for children and public education. the american federation of teachers, a union of professionals. the singapore tourism board -- singapore airlines, a great way to fly. poongsan corporation, forging a higher global standard. the ctc foundation. afo communications. the rotondaro family trust. >> later, i will talk with the kazakhstan foreign minister. right now, a visit with the u.s. ambassador to kazakhstan, can the fairfax. what americans know about kazakhstan? >> the short answer is a lot more than they currently do. >> thank you. >> it is the ninth largest country on earth. it is a country that has a rather extraordinary relationship with the united states, yet most people know either nothing or worse than nothing, what they have seen in a movie, which is the opposite of reality, of course. so there is a lot to learn here. >> what are the mutual interests of the two countries, the united states and kazakhstan? >> we have many. you can look at it from energy to food security. we have lots of overlapping interests. but for many, the one that comes to mind is non

nation dade of action. people are here from various working groups. these are employee union, teachers, community workers of america. and you can see right now they are rallying, they are chanting. there's everyone a san jose city councilman that just took the podium a little while ago and was rallying the crowd here. something else that i want to point out is that there's actually one man who is actually up on top of the wall there at san jose city hall. he's been there for 26 days earlier today, he was told by authorities that he must come down. so far though we have not seen any authorities come in to move him down but there's speculation that might happen sometime later tonight. also, you don't see any tents here because they were moved out this morning. and every night the occupy san jose people have been moving their tents across the street to spend the night across the street. but as the marchers were coming in we actually saw somebody physically pick up one of the at the -- one of the tents across the street and move it in here. tonight they're still going to be here in some fo

own words. >> and you see some hypocrisy here because of the anti-bullying stance that her organization has taken. why? >> the national teachers unionsnal federation of teachers or the national education association are constantly talking about bullying and how we need to get bullying out of schools and we shouldn't be -- students shouldn't be picking on others and those types of things. in fact, the aft just had an anti-bullying conference and yet, here you've got the president of the union, the third largest local union in the country picking on the education secretary's lisp. it's just -- it's -- there's a double standard going on. it's absolutely ridiculous and the interesting thing is there's very little accountable for her other than from the media and the public. her members are not calling on her to step down and so at this point, she still is president of the union. >> so kyle, again, she's pointing the finger at you. she's pointing the finger at andrew britebart but no apology for taking on arnie duncan's lisp or whatever. talking about marijuana, nothing? >> well, what happened was she supposedly did apologize to him and h

on teachers is just one piece of a massive campaign underway right now to completely transform how our nation educate educate our kids states around the country aren't just busting up teachers' unions they're busting up the public education school system itself the plain a simple take the responsibility to educate the next generation of engineers scientists and doctors from the hands of government in spirit occasions system and handed over to you guessed it wall street and its for profit education system to explain how exactly this is happening investigative reporter and contributor to the nation magazine leaf own joins me now. welcome to the show hey sam nice to see you and i should write thank obligation of the nation and ask you on what you mean the opportunity to write this piece of paper to guide me onto the show yeah and it was a just a great piece you wrote and that's that's what i want to talk about here you talk about it's such as charter schools but it's these online charter schools that seem to be the the biggest threat to our public education system now you want to rip on the. sure you know we've seen in the past year has been an education revolution we've seen it pick

collective bargaining rights for many of the state's unionized workers from police and firefighters to teachers and prison guards. rich trumka is the president of the nation'scio and joins me now. well, as the head of the afl-cio, you are -- are you going to be able to roll back that ballot initiative today? >> i feel pretty certain that we're going to do that, andrea. there's a lot of energy on the ground here. the volunteers have been coming out. we did over 7,000 man shifts of door knocks yesterday. we made over 430,000 phone calls yesterday. the energy is tremendous. and everybody is feeling pretty confident. it's a beautiful day in the state of ohio. so there's no reason for people not to come out to vote. there was a big vote early vote system. so we feel pretty good right now. the workers here have done a tremendous job of saying enough is enough. we're not going to allow you to take away our rights and our ladder into the middle class. >> now the polling suggests that you've got a lot of wind behind you. but polling in an off-year election is notoriously imprecise. what are the implications if labor loses this? let's just talk about all of the setba

union loss did. the head of union teachers >> i think i know why the union doesn't like testing. >> your results are awful. they are among the lowest in the nation. >> you make an argument that it is the lowest in the nation based upon the test scores. now, i would say that ours can get better but i he would say that ours are -- >> your predecessors, the unions have been saying that for years. >> i think the unions have a pretty strong history of advocating for high quality public education. >> but not achieving it. >> our test scores are not what we choose to focus on. we choose to focus on teaching kids. >> you but ho but you how do yw if they are learning anything if you don't test them and compare. >> i know my kids are learning when i look in their eyes. >> the protests had celebrity support. actor matt damon. he was asked from reason tv about the rules that make it hard to fire a teacher. >> in acting there isn't job security. why do you think there is that in teachers. >> do you think job insecurity makes me work hard. i want. >> you take it mba style thinking, right? >> mba style. business school idea. >> well, yes. charter schools, vouc

union loss did. the head of union teachers >> i think i know why the union doesn't like testing. >> your results are awful. they are among the lowest in the nationan argument that it is the lowest in the nation based upon the test scores. now, i would say that ours can get better but i he would say that ours are -- >> your predecessors, the unions have been saying that for years. >> i think the unions have a pretty strong history of advocating for high quality public education. >> but not achieving it. >> our test scores are not what we choose to focus on. we choose to focus on teaching kids. >> you but ho but you how do yw if they are learning anything if you don't test them and compare. >> i know my kids are learning when i look in their eyes. >> the protests had celebrity support. actor matt damon. he was asked from reason tv about the rules that make it hard to fire a teacher. >> in acting there isn't job security. why do you think there is that in teachers. >> do you think job insecurity makes me work hard. i want. >> you take it mba style thinking, right? >> mba style. business school idea. >> well, yes. charter schools, vouchers, even oba

national implications went down in defeat. an initiative to outlaw abortion by declaring that life begins at conception failed in mississippi and ohio voters rejected a republican effort to limit the bargaining power of union teacherscops and firefighters. meanwhile, one year from today, americans will go back to the polls to pick a president. and herman cain seems convinced he's still in the running, despite the two women who have gone public with sexual harassment allegations against him, while two others remain anonymous. aside from his defiant press conference today, cain sat down with only one reporter, abc's jonathan karl. >> reporter: it's come to this. the man who shot to the top of the race for the republican presidential nomination forced to hold a press conference denying that he is a sexual harasser. >> i have never acted inappropriately with anyone, period. the fact is, these anonymous allegations are false. the charges and the accusations are absolute ly reject. >> reporter: it's been a roller coaster ride for cain. obscure candidate with little money who surged to the top of the pomes a month air go only to face this. >> he suddenly reached over and he put his hand on my leg under my skirt and reache

they are not teachers, they are not educators, they are likely nation of 1968 stirring the pot to destabilize the unions and the workers but my real question here is to the panel in general is, what is it going to take to revitalize the labor movement in the united states to turn around those statistics that you so eloquently alluded to? we are down to less than 10% in the private sector unionized and 30% in the public sector under attack in the public sector because of them. what is it going to take to revitalize the labor movement? >> we are pointing to one another. [laughter] inexperience and youth. it is going to take, is going to take what the sanitation workers were doing in memphis and 68. it is going to take struggle. it is going to take i think a coming together of sectors of our civic life that have been seeing themselves as polarized for so long. we need strong schools and if you want strong schools you need strong teachers and the need strong unions for that. that is just something that we have to believe in and we have to fight for. i think it have to come from the ranks of unionized and yo

national occupy protests that are taking place around this country? where people as far removed as undergraduate students, union organizers, teachers are sick and tired ofevery day in this country? i mean, is the super committee just ignoring that? >> the republicans on the super committee, martin, have asked themselves, i mean, if not publicly, certainly they reflect upon this, are any of these people going to contribute to me or vote for me? and the answer, they conclude, is no. and i think the democrats obviously are responsive to what the super committee wants, which is to have more income equality. they certainly want to protect the safety net programs for the people of this country, and to have a fairer tax code. so i do think that they're responsive to the occupy wall street protests. and of course, for every protester, there's hundreds of thousands of people who identify with their message, if not with their tactics. but we have a situation, and it's going to be exacerbated with all the redistrictings that will take place -- that are taking place right now, but will apply to the 2012 elections, where every incumbent is going to have a safer dist

teachers, firefighters, and police officers and other publicer is vabts. and we've -- servants and we've seen american workers, union and nonunion alike, fight back, inspiring the nation. my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have promoted many myths about what their misguided legislation that they're bringing forward today and how it will impact the national labor relations board. so i'd like to clarify a few facts. first, the bill -- this bill mandates delay. rather than minimizes it. it encourages frivolous litigation rather than discourages it. it convolutes and distort elections rather than simplifying them. simply put, this legislation would deny workers their right to a free and fair election to form a union. it adds extensive delay to the process as workers organize with the clear intention of, if my colleague, congressman george miller, the ranking member of the labor -- education and labor committee has said, wearing down workers so they give up fighting for a better deal. it's an age-old tactic. it must be rejected. at a time when americans are demanding jobs and job growth, economic growth for our country, today's legislation is the long -- wrong priority. we need to be solving the pr