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| SEATTLE SHAPSHOT | |
 November 24, 1999 
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RON JUDD: What are we saying, that we don't care about workers, we're saying that we don't care about environmental protection. We're saying that we don't care about community standards.
RON JUDD: The trading system has got to be about more than reducing the costs of the production of goods or services -- and more than about profits. People ought to be able to share in the wealth that's being generated on this planet. And it's not happening. MIKE JAMES: Labor will send that message in a massive union march through the streets of this trading city on the first full day of WTO next Tuesday. As many as 50,000 protesters are expected, and not from labor alone. SPOKESMAN: What is this thing and why are we... you know, why are all those protesters coming together? |
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| Sparking global concerns | ||||||||||||||||||||
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SPOKESPERSON: We're here to tell you why the WTO doesn't make trade clean, green and fair. MIKE JAMES: The Sierra Club and other mainstream environmental groups
will also join labor on that march through the city. Just as unions
want the right to organize and the right to work for better wages, written
in to WTO SPOKESMAN: This is a rolling duffel, this is like a real soft... MIKE JAMES: On the other side is Skip Kotkins of Skyway Luggage, who makes his living in international trade. Skyway products manufactured in Chinese and Taiwanese factories are shipped from this Seattle area warehouse to stores all over the country. Kotkins thinks labor is dead wrong. SKIP KOTKINS: If I wanted to think of the single thing that would most impede, impede the advancement of environmental standards and labor standards in other countries to mandate that they must meet our standards now, nothing could slow it down faster. |
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| Different pictures of the future | ||||||||||||||||||||
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MIKE JAMES: In a Central Washington fruit warehouse, apple buyer Todd Fryhover sees the WTO meeting as a critical chance to open new export markets. Agriculture is on the negotiating table in this round of talks at a time when Washington growers are shut out of countries and pay heavy tariffs in places like China and Israel.
MIKE JAMES: No one in this local debate denies that globalization is reality now, it's clear that an economic meltdown across the Pacific and Asia can destroy an apple market and put growers this state out of business. But as next week's WTO meeting gets closer, people in this trading state see very different pictures of the future. MAN: Pointed out - MIKE JAMES: In a local union hall, Boeing workers, the machinists who build the planes sold around the world, talk about WTO. They see their jobs in peril. RONNIE BEHNKE, Boeing Machinist: I work in fab division in Auburn, and I see a lot of our jobs going to Korea, to Mexico and my fellow workers getting laid off. And it's... You know, they can get labor there way cheaper. MIKE JAMES: In his luggage warehouse, Skip Kotkins sees a different version, not jobs moving from one country to another but new jobs building up other countries economically and eventually improving labor and environmental conditions around the world. These are powerfully different visions, all competing for space at the WTO table next week -- in a city where global trade will support directly and indirectly one out of three jobs by the year 2005. So perhaps it is fitting as one local paper put it this week, that Seattle, of all places, provides the ring for a world trade wrestling match. |
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MIKE
JAMES: Washington is the most trade-dependent state in the country…from
apples to Boeing airplanes, $34 billion worth of exports ship out of
the state every year. That's one reason why the World Trade Organization
is meeting in the port city of Seattle next week. But even here, in
a place where one out of every four jobs is tied to trade, the WTO is
a target. 
MIKE
JAMES: The man debating on the phone is Ron Judd, head of the King County
Labor Council. He knows that 40 percent of his union members locally
get work and paychecks from two-way trade. But Judd is also convinced
that in the WTO system, there's not enough protection for labor rights.
MIKE
JAMES: Two months ago, dozens of political activists from all around
the world gathered on a farm north of Seattle to work on signs, stunts
and anti-WTO strategy. They see the WTO Ministerial Conference as an
irresistible target, a place to make the argument that globalization
and trade are undermining environmental protections and human rights
everywhere. 
trade
rules, the Greens want rules to protect the environment. WTO now, they
argue, doesn't care how goods are produced. 
TODD
FRYHOVER, Apple Shipper: It is almost at a dire need right now. We need
to export more fruits to have more access to keep our growers afloat
and keep them economically feasible.