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WTO stands for World Trade
Organization but it
means a world of trouble to the world's workers.
Since its creation in 1995,
the WTO has been busily
enforcing global trade rules and opening world
markets. Its mission is to make the world safe for
corporate investment. Too often, that means
undermining health, safety and environmental
standards and human and labor rights.
Decisions are made by
unelected bureaucrats in secret.
No wonder that when the
WTO's Ministerial Meeting
took place in Seattle at the end of November, tens of
thousands of protesters were there to challenge this
global corporate agenda. The
media mostly focused on a few incidents of
vandalism, missing the big story: environmentalists and
student activists marching alongside union members
and family farmers. Together they told WTO delegates,
"We didn't elect you! And we don't want your rules!" The
significance of the WTO to union members was
neatly summed up by a float in the labor parade in
Seattle. Depicting a tugboat hauling a factory on a
barge, the float brought to life the threat uttered by
General Electric CEO Jack Welch: "Ideally every
plant you own would be on a barge" — ever
ready to shift to wherever labor is cheapest. The
UE News online is please to present a comic
book especially created for the Seattle WTO meeting
by cartoonist Mike Konopacki. As
unbelievable as the operations of the WTO may
sound at times, this isn't science fiction/ And as the
protesters in Seattle remind us all, we don't have to
accept corporate doom without a fight.
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