Union and Environmental Groups Parade ‘Toxic Trade’

Posted by Mike Hall to AFL-CIO NOW

In the 1950s, the movie monsters and creatures that threatened the American way of life came from black lagoons, outer space and atomic bomb tests. In the 21st century, there’s a real-life threat to the nation and the globe—toxic trade that kills jobs and the environment—and it came from the “free trade” laboratory.

Today, a 20-foot tall “Toxic Trader” monster—gripping a lead-tainted Thomas the Tank Engine in one hand and wearing a necktie of $100 bills—marched through the streets of Washington, D.C. But before he could find refuge at a meeting of Bush administration officials, “free trade” lobbyists and corporate executives whose trade experiments spawned the job-killing, planet-poisoning creature, he was brought to his knees by a trio of chem-suited and caped “Toxic Avengers.”

This bit of street theater, staged by the United Steelworkers, Jobs with Justice and trade and environmental groups, spotlighted the Bush administration’s so-called “Import Safety Summit” going on now in Washington. But it’s the Bush administration’s free trade agreements and failure to adequately regulate and inspect imports that have lead to the toxic trade crisis.

At the summit, the same forces behind the policies that have shipped U.S. jobs overseas and opened the floodgates to a stream of deadly imports from kids’ toys to toothpaste, tires and pet food now are writing new rules that would allows corporations to police their own trade policies. That’s comforting, eh?

The demonstration followed this morning’s release of the USW’s report, “The Toxic Truth: Unfair Trade Kills.” The report provides a detailed look at the deaths and injuries to consumers from the products—many made for U.S. corporations—manufactured in nations with lax environmental and safety laws and virtually non-existent workers’ rights laws. According to the report:

"The glut of toxic imports is not a fluke. It is the logical outcome of a failed experiment with free trade.…These trade deals are bargained behind closed doors and participants are generally bound by strict confidentiality so none outside the meetings ever learns what went on. At the table are trade representatives from each country and often literally right behind them, representatives from major multination corporations."

Most of these so-called “Free Trade Agreements” go to great lengths to protect corporate profits and prerogatives, but include few provisions, if any, to protect workers, consumers or the environment.

At the demonstration, outside the Grand Hyatt Hotel where the “free traders” were meeting, Jos Williams, president of the Metropolitan Washington Council of the AFL-CIO, told the crowd that the corporate and government representatives huddled behind closed doors:

"[A]re putting corporate interests and profits over the health of workers and the environment. It’s time to put the people’s interests above corporate interests."

According to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), the growing U.S. trade deficit with China has cost 2.1 million U.S. jobs between 1997 and 2006.