SEATTLE (Reuters) - Massive protests await the world’s free trade boosters as they gather late this month in Seattle, even though exports support the booming economy and many of the jobs in the Northwest United States.
Aircraft, timber, fruit and software sales help Washington state lead the nation in exports, yet local politicians will join some 50,000 marchers demanding “fair trade,” not just free trade, when the World Trade Organization meets here from Nov. 30 to Dec. 3.
Several seaports on western Washington waterways will be idle as hundreds of longshoremen join the parade.
“Obviously the union is not anti-trade – that’s how we make our living. But the union opposes the free trade policies of the WTO. We take a stand for fair trade, not free trade,” Steve Stallone, communications director for the International Longshore and Warehouse Union.
The demonstrations will be organized with the help of 900 machinists from plane maker Boeing Co., the nation’s top exporting company. They will act as marshals during the march, hoping to keep it peaceful.
Led by the giant AFL-CIO labor union, marchers will clog downtown streets in a parade to the Washington State Convention Center to present WTO chief Mike Moore a list of their demands as the conference kicks off on Nov. 30.
Hordes of wall-climbers and pamphleteers have also promised to halt traffic on Seattle’s busy streets and wharves and officials representing a region highly suspicious of the WTO are engaging them early to head off any violence or riots.
“There’s going to be an unbelievable amount of people in the City of Seattle,” said Seattle Police spokeswoman Lisa Ross. “We are expecting demonstrations and protests. We are also expecting them to be peaceful.”
Most of Seattle’s 1,261 police officers will work 12-hour shifts during the conference, backed up by hundreds of local and federal security staff as protesters jam into town to greet delegates from the 134-member WTO.
WTO organizers have played down forecasts for tens of thousands of protesters, citing Seattle’s notoriously foul autumn weather.
But labor leaders don’t expect gray skies to keep protesters away and the AFL-CIO has ordered 20,000 rain ponchos for those who arrive unprepared.
“We’re trying to get the word out that it will likely be wet and cold,” said AFL-CIO communications director Karen Keiser.
Puget Sound residents remain deeply suspicious of unfettered free trade and see the WTO, which hopes to launch a new round of global trade liberalization, as hell-bent on overturning environmental and labor safeguards in a drive to maximize corporate profits.
Seattle billboards have been plastered with ads accusing the WTO of sacrificing democracy and family farms while encouraging toxic waste, forest destruction and even forced labor in Burma, a WTO member.
In September the King County Council gave a highly controversial lukewarm welcome to the WTO, voting to strike a reference to “free trade” from an official WTO salute.
After a call from the White House, the council approved a statement favoring “free and fair trade” that would improve people’s lives and working conditions, sovereignty and the environment.
More recently WTO opponents have harassed White House officials, including top economic adviser Martin Baily, whose speech at the University of Washington was canceled Monday at the mere presence of a few dozen activists.
To avoid similar disruptions, the Council is reportedly considering circling the wagons, literally. Metro buses may be used to encircle downtown locations hosting key WTO meetings, shielding them from protesters, local reports say.
While a large contingent of protesters spent several days this summer in rural Washington state training to scale walls and hang banners from buildings, police say they don’t consider these demonstrators the violent type.
Law enforcement officials were reluctant to talk about the threat of bioterrorism during the meetings, though area hospitals have said they are preparing for chemical or germ attacks, however remote the possibility.
“We are ready for anything but we have not had any indication of bioterrorism or anything of that sort,” Ross said.
Agencies supporting Seattle police include police in nearby Tukwila, Kent and Bellevue, the King County Sheriff, Port of Seattle and Washington state police, U.S. Secret Service, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and the FBI.
