That giant sucking sound

Ron Judd is executive secretary of the King County Labor Council, a coalition of trade unions.

We're not against trade. A huge percentage of the people I represent—machinists, longshoremen, truck drivers—their paychecks every week are delivered because they're trading a product. But everything the WTO is trying to accomplish through their rule-making agenda is potentially bad for workers in this area. The system is rewarding corporate bad behavior. We can't compete with another country where there's no health care, no retirement, no social security, no unemployment insurance. It ought to be a rule-based system, but the rules, as they're being applied, are driving down standards for labor, community, and the environment.

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More About

• World Trade Organization
• David Korten
• Brian Derdowski
• Trade Policy
• Trade

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You know the WTO wants to stop countries from subsidizing industries like agriculture, steel, and shipbuilding. But if the same country is suppressing union activity, destroying the ability of workers to organize [and thereby suppressing wages], they don't consider that a subsidy. It's not on the table because we haven't been at the table. If a company or a country is violating worker rights, they ought to have economic sanctions filed against them just as they would if they violated a patent. Why do products have more protection than people?

They say they want to 'give consumers the maximum options for the least cost.' But when Nike moved its sneaker factories to Indonesia, the price of the shoes didn't go down. When a car company shuts down a UAW plant and moves to the maquiladora in Mexico, a $40,000 SUV still costs $40,000. Is this about minimizing the cost to the consumer or minimizing the cost of production in order to make more profit?

Up until now, most of the stuff has been about protecting goods. Now for the first time they're talking about adopting rules for the service sector. This could be a threat to "prevailing wage" contracts. All construction projects that use public money have to be "prevailing wage": companies that bid on the job aren't allowed to compete on wages, they have to find savings somewhere else. We think a Canadian firm could make the argument that "prevailing wage" is a trade barrier.

When we decided to build new ferries in the '80s, we passed 'Build Them in Washington' legislation to ensure that they were built in Washington state. We had ailing shipyards and wanted to keep the local tax money within the local economy. We know that probably would not hold muster under the WTO.