Labor's New Internationalism

THE SEATTLE MESSAGE

The fervent protests that accompanied the World Trade Organization (WTO) meeting in Seattle last November showed just how urgent the issues of globalization and trade are to working Americans. Joining with environmentalists, consumer advocates, and human rights activists, the labor movement's message from Seattle could not have been clearer: The era of trade negotiations conducted by sheltered elites balancing competing commercial interests behind closed doors is over. Globalization has reached a turning point. The future is a contested terrain of very public choices that will shape the world economy of the 21st century. The forces behind global economic change -- which exalt deregulation, cater to corporations, undermine social structures, and ignore popular concerns -- cannot be sustained. Globalization is leaving perilous instability and rising inequality in its wake. It is hurting too many and helping too few. As President Clinton himself has said, if the global market is to survive, it must work for working families. A first step toward that goal is building labor rights, environmental protection, and social standards into trade accords and the protocols of international financial institutions -- and enforcing them with the same vigor now reserved for property rights.