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WTO events taught us a real lesson

By CHRIS DUGOVICH

On November 30, somewhere in the neighborhood of 500 AFSCME members from Council 75, Council 28 and Council 2 took part in the labor march protesting the policies of the World Trade Organization. In all, more than 40,000 trade unionists took part in a peaceful march through downtown Seattle.

Chris Dugovich
Council 2 President/Executive Director

The most important message that came through is that everyone—Union members and non-members—needs to be aware of the current state of trade throughout the world. That message is that whole manufacturing sectors of our economy are being transferred overseas where low-paid workers, in sometimes unsafe conditions, produce the goods we buy.

The WTO is the organization that can wipe out even minimal wage and environmental standards and declare them trade barriers. And it’s done in closed sessions.

As a native Washingtonian, a number of thoughts struck me about the total event.

The total volume of individuals downtown was something that I never thought I would witness. All the main streets including 4th, 5th and 6th, were filled with people as far as one could see.

Secondly, as was fairly reported 99% of all the demonstrators were peaceful. It was only a small handful that created the vivid TV images beamed across the world.

Last, but certainly not least, the chaos that occurred was certainly not any one individual’s fault but the individuals who initially promoted and brought this event to Seattle.

In my lifetime, since the ’62 Worlds Fair, certain promoters of Seattle have attempted to bring every major event possible to our city. We have grown into a big city with big league sports. Soon we will have our third world-class stadium and, at every convention and conference possible, the promoters pitch our beautiful scenery and gentle populace.

Make no mistake, Seattle is much different from the days when Kalakala plied the Puget Sound Waters and the Smith Tower was the tallest building west of the Mississippi. The real lesson, however, for Seattle is that there are certain events that maybe we don’t even want.For years, Emmett Watson—a noted columnist for the Seattle Times—wrote tongue-in-cheek of his fictitious organization “Lesser Seattle”.
He gave directives to his membership, such as “call a friend in California and tell them it’s raining”; he jokes of keeping Seattle small and its beauty a secret.

In reality, maybe we shouldn’t keep it a secret, but maybe we shouldn’t be so quick to continually bring every event in before its ramifications are fully realized.

In short, maybe next time we’ll tell them “it’s raining.”