It has been seven years since the WTO protest (World Trade Organization) was held in Seattle, Washington. I am proud to say that I participated in the historic event. Although there was enormous press coverage on a few incidents of violence, I can assure you with over 50,000 people participating, the incidents reported were minor and few. I can also tell you, the protestors did not cause all incidents reported. There were several incidents that were spurred on by local Seattle residents.

All WTO meetings are followed by enormous protests and here is why.

All corporations are the same they strive for vast profits and could care less how they achieve their goal. Outsourcing of jobs is one way the corporations meet their goal. Outsourcing jobs is like water running down hill it will always find the lowest point. And that is why corporations love outsourcing, they will find a poor country where the people are destitute, where there are no unions, and people will work for nothing. This is a paradise for greedy corporations and the United States Government supports WTO.

At one time the highly educated or trained worker in developed countries was safe from the possibility of losing his or her job to a poor country and this scenario seemed to work well. As the opportunity and ability of workers to advance their training or education allowed workers to change jobs and or receive better wages. Thus, the "rising tide that lifts all boats" theory worked pretty well.

With the advances in global communications, and transportation the once barriers for using labor in one country for another country has been compromised. And the corporations are taking full advantage of the situation. For example, remember if you had a problem with your bank you could call in and talk to a representative from your bank somewhat locally. Now it is not uncommon and nothing less than irritating, when you have to call India to take care of a problem with in minutes of home!

The final blow for the movement of jobs was the development of the WTO and international trade agreements, in which centralized rulemaking bodies can trump national laws and interests. The corporations love the way WTO has become a profit tool. Corporations consider the world now as a world labor pool where they can use the cheapest labor regardless of whether those markets pay fair wages, ensure worker safety, and disallow child labor and sweatshops.  Several other things WTO does not support benefits like health care and retirement plans, nor do they support regulations that keep their factories from polluting the air, land, and water.

As jobs are lost to lower cost countries, workers in developed countries will have to work for less. A quote from Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Samuelson agrees: "The ... real wage has been lowered by this version of dynamic fair free trade."
Even though cheep goods are being available to developed countries from companies such as Wal-Mart it is a proven fact that the benefits of cheep priced goods do not out way the loss of American Jobs! The adverse impact on the nations economy is tremendous. Cheep goods only help a few people, and these few, are the corporate glutton pigs.
Some say that WTO promotes democracy, once people of a country taste the fruits of their labor brought about by free trade, that it would be hard for a dictator to remain in power. It all sounds great but when the rules adopted for the WTO protects corporation's rights and not the people's rights. It makes it easier for the dictator to remain in power because the corporations keep his government coffers full.

WTO rules or super laws, over rule any country's' laws, they have challenged such laws as the Clean water act and the Endangered species Act. WTO is run by developed countries such as the United States where the country has allowed special interest groups to be a part of our countries law making or general business functions. These special interest groups are corporations. These corporations are allowed to be part of the negations or rule making of the WTO. I can assure you that these corporations are not looking out for the best interest of their workers.

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