NOV. 20, 2009:NWLP
11/17/09
9:47 AM
Page 8
...WTO — 10 years later
(From Page 6)
As night fell, the police cracked down. Some in
the crowd responded by setting fire to Dumpsters.
Seattle Mayor Paul Schell declared a curfew and
the formation of a “no-protest” zone. Police pur-
sued protesters out of downtown and into the
nearby Capitol Hill neighborhood. Most of the
day’s protesters — union members off work for
the day, students who’d skipped classes — re-
turned home.
By morning, two dozen blocks in the core of
downtown Seattle had become a militarized zone
where anyone who protested would be arrested on
sight. Police — who’d stood by the day before
while anarchists and delinquents broke windows
and spray-painted corporate storefronts — now
rushed in aggressively at any sign of protest.
Police arrested 630 people in all, bused them to
a special FEMA detention center at the moth-
balled Sand Point Naval Base, and held them there
and at King County Jail for up to five days. Shop-
pers, bystanders, reporters and local politicians
were swept up in the arrests. Anyone going into
the street could find themselves choking on tear
gas, as did Oregon Congressman Peter DeFazio.
Over the next few days, police repression of basic
rights came to overshadow other issues.
On Day Four of the summit, the WTO talks
PAGE 8
collapsed when delegates from less-developed
countries walked out. For protesters, it was a vic-
tory beyond what they could have imagined. For
advocates of WTO-style free trade agreements, it
was a debacle. The uprising punctured the per-
ception of inevitability or omnipotence that free-
traders had enjoyed.
“It was a radicalizing experience,” said Stan
Sorscher, a trade activist and union rep for the So-
ciety of Professional Engineering Employees in
Aerospace Local 2001 at Boeing. “People who
participated in it talk about it in semi-religious
terms.”
“This was taking on world powers,” recalls Jeff
Johnson, legislative director for the Washington
State Labor Council, AFL-CIO. “It was unprece-
dented. Here you have all these world leaders and
you’ve exposed what they’re doing: meeting be-
hind closed doors. They’re not interested in having
honest discussion about the repercussions of trade
on people.”
Ripples from the event continued for months
and years.
In Seattle, Police Chief Norm Stamper re-
signed. Mayor Schell lost re-election. A federal
jury agreed the City of Seattle had violated pro-
testers’ free speech rights, and the City paid $1
million to settle the suit, filed on behalf of pro-
testers arrested for violating the “no-protest zone.”
Attempting to recreate Seattle, protesters came
together by the tens of thousands at the 2000 Re-
publican and Democratic conventions, and at in-
ternational summits in Washington, D.C.; Miami;
Genoa, Italy, and Cancun, Mexico. But none had
the impact of the Seattle protests. Local police and
national governments resolved never to allow a
repeat of Seattle, and police surveilled and dis-
rupted, created barriers, and used preemptive mass
arrests and physical intimidation.
A year after the Seattle WTO protests, George
W. Bush was declared president by the U.S.
Supreme Court. Labor’s energies were absorbed in
defense against a hostile White House; a mini-re-
cession; and the economic and political fallout of
the 9/11 attacks. Campus activism shifted to other
causes, including opposition to the war in Iraq.
But free-traders never fully recovered from the
protests, and have been on the defensive ever
since. Attempting to rally, the WTO held its next
meeting in 2001 in Doha, Qatar, a state ruled by a
monarch, who forbade all forms of protest. At
Doha, the WTO achieved what had eluded it in
Seattle — a declaration of commitment to a new
round of negotiations. But the negotiations never
led to an agreement. A 2003 WTO summit in
Cancun collapsed in similar fashion to the Seattle
summit.
After Seattle, free-traders adopted the rhetoric
of protesters, saying it was important that labor
and environmental concerns be considered. But
labor and green groups were not fooled and con-
tinued to oppose new international trade agree-
ments.
In 2005, a Republican majority in Congress
succeeded in passing CAFTA (a NAFTA-style
agreement with Central America), but by then a
shift had occurred among Democrats. Whereas
102 House Democrats voted for NAFTA in 1993,
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
just 15 voted for CAFTA. When Democrats re-
gained the majority in 2007, they stripped the
White House of the “fast track” authority needed
to negotiate future trade agreements. And they
signed up in droves to support a bill in Congress
that calls for the renegotiation of NAFTA, the
WTO, and other agreements, and sets labor and
other standards for new trade agreements; the
TRADE Act of 2009 has 127 co-sponsors in the
House.
The next WTO summit kicks off in Geneva,
Switzerland Nov. 30, exactly 10 years after pro-
testers shut it down in Seattle. In Geneva, there
will be protests; in Seattle and Portland, remem-
brances.
Portland, Seattle
To Hold Events
In Seattle: A “week of action” will start with a
weekend conference Nov. 28-29. David Korten
will keynote Saturday, Nov. 28 at Seattle Univer-
sity, where AFL-CIO trade expert Thea Lee will
present a workshop on trade policy. That will be
followed by an evening event at New Hope Bap-
tist Church. Sunday evening at Town Hall, Lee
will be joined by British Columbia Labour Feder-
ation President Jim Sinclair and a video appear-
ance by United Steelworkers President Leo Ger-
ard. See seattleplus10.org for details.
In Portland: A march, rally and concert will
take place Saturday, Dec. 5 in downtown Portland.
The rally begins at noon at Tom McCall Water-
front Park under the Hawthorne Bridge; at 1 p.m.
participants will march to the World Trade Center,
Federal Building and Wells Fargo Building, end-
ing up at Portland State University at 2 p.m. for
an indoor rally and concert. See www.december5
.org for details.
NOVEMBER 20, 2009