made up of fifty three labor social justice environmental faith student family farm and fair trade businesses that are calling for trade justice a change in our current trading policy for the united states so we are facing some of the biggest trade agreements since the passage of nafta and capita which is the north american and central american free trade agreements right now in the month of july our elected officials here in washington state as well as our entire congress and senate are going to be voting on three trade agreements one with south korea one with colombia and one with panama and these were agreements that were negotiated during the bush administration in two thousand and seven and thanks to the work of many labor and social justice trade activists these agreements have not come up for a vote and it is only because of pressure from corporate interests and because of our current economic problems that the these are being pushed forward with the idea that these will create jobs however looking at our past trade policies with with nafta and calf our trade policies are the very reason why we are in the current economic crisis that we're in now our trade policies our offshoring our industries  manufacturing our high tech industries causing job loss here in the u s and also sliding back the labor standards that have been long fox floor in our country so as our international corporations are moving work overseas the labor standards the environmental standards are are not being abided by and so we see a rise in sweatshops in poor conditions for labors where we are are doing business also environmental degradation where we have worked hard to have clean water clean air acts that are guiding our corporations also the countries in which we are  negotiating these agreements are countries that themselves have been struggling economically socially politically we saw in in central america for example countries that had just come out of decades of warfare having very delicate economies then having and of another economic warfare being waged on them were corporations go the exploit the conditions see people they're not as farmers or as skilled workers they're seen as any worker that can make anything and farmers have lost their lands their livelihoods communities have not been able to feed themselves and workers have been truest into the cities where there are these huge sweatshops that are making apparel and all sorts of different products that are then sent back to the u s and actually paying the cost and then there's also been a loss of indigenous rights and human rights in situations where communal lands lands that had been traditionally co manage the water and the land are now being privatized because corporations are wanting to exploit the natural resources mining privatized the water set up a large scale agribusiness and so basically what we have been doing is working on both educating the public as well as calling are not on our elected officials particularly our elected officials here state in washington eight because as a state with many ports with commodities coming in and going out of our ports washington state suffers just proportionately when bad trade policies are passed and with the current trade policies are on the table we're looking to lose over one hundred thousand jobs that will be outsourced and basically hurt the economy more here in washington state because that trickles down people don't have jobs they are not supporting local businesses local businesses go out of business people no longer can afford their houses they can no longer afford health care for their families and we think our trade policy has by and large gotten us into this and if we could have worker rights and indigenous rights and human rights and more corporate accountability our trade policies could actually benefit more than just corporate gains that our trade policies can be a means towards all of us sharing and prosperity that we can all have the basic needs that we need and we can do this without hurting the planet because there's no reason that profit should be put either over people or the environment  the ecosystems that we share here on the planet we'd effect a coalition and many of our allies have felt the need to to take to the streets to let our elected leaders know that people by and large are not supporting free trade as a model any more that works and with surveys across the country in a two thousand and eight election cycle many  of our legit officials ran on fair trade recognizing that this model of opening up our markets and allowing goods to flow freely doesn't actually help build state economies and actually historically the u s has and still does protect our markets protect our farmers and those protections come in many different forms in the form of subsidy in the to grow strong and there's many many examples of that so in two thousand and eight and even before but it was very pronounced in two thousand election president obama candidate obama ran on a fair trade farm he promised to renegotiate nafta because nafta is by and large seen as a failed trade agreement it promised to stabilize the economies of canada the u s and mexico a promise to develop a more sustainable a sustainable stable economy and mexico and what it did was cause millions of jobs to be lost and industries to move to mexico but then causing farmers to lose their land and forcing many people across the border and this is where trade links very closely with forced migration and immigration reform is is an issue that th trade coalition works on and in collaboration with some of our partners including the me first coalition in quantities in groups that are really working on what happens to my green people when they come here to the u s and  what we talk about is what what forced people to come here to the u s why are people coming here is that by choice or because they have no other choice because they have literally lost their livelihoods because for people to leave their families in the place where they live and read school life to go to another place where they don't actually have the ability to control what their lives are like frequently working at below minimum wage with no benefits at all it is not a choice someone makes if things are going well in their own communities so we see a rise in forced migration from mexico followed following the  nafta passage of nafta we see a rise in forced migration from central america following the central american free trade agreement and we have no doubt that if the colombia free trade agreement passes there will also be  similar rise in foresman creation and this is where farmers are are disproportionately impacted and so we've been focusing a lot on farmers when we've been educating and advocating for change in our trade policy so i have a button here that says free trade hurts farmers and this is a message that we've been bringing out to people communities throughout washington state and free trade hurts farmers  here in the u s as well as where we do business so one specific example is of the most recent trade agreement that the u s has made it was with peru and it passed about a year and a half ago or went into effect about a year and a half ago and it greatly impacted the asparagus industry here in washington state that had been well developed those of us here in washington state you know we make amazing asparagus our climate is very well suited for asparagus however the asparagus industry side opportunity in peru where they could go in and develop an industry there they could save a lot of money by paying workers a lot they would they are taking land that has actually not been used for agriculture in the past so while farmers here in washington state lost the market and lost as the big agri business moved to prune it's not as if peruvian and agriculture farmers one basically they were then employed for poverty wages the areas that were being used are environmentally sensitive and so the winners were big agribusiness the big asparagus corporations and it was not the farmers so the farmers get get s free trade thinking is that by the us not having terra for agricultural products from colombia or other places coming into the u s the net makes it easy for farmers to access our markets but if you anyone who's been to colombia would know that farming communities are quite remote and it's not as if they have an infrastructure that enables farmers to even get to their local markets most farmers are subsistence farmers are growing for their own communities and the roads do not allow them to actually transport large amounts of crops and so it's incredibly foolish to think that just by negotiating this trade agreement that it really is for farmers because the farmers can't actually get to the nearest big town in their own country there is no way they can actually get their products onto a boat and off to the us in a way that would make their products a viable so they very much get pinched and we've also been highlighting farmers because farmers have been at the for calling for a new way of a new economic policy for the world and there was a case of a south korean farmer during one of the meetings who actually immolated himself because he wanted to draw attention to the plight of farmers and actually there are very high suicide rates worldwide because of farmers that are so desperate because this is what they know this is their indigenous knowledge this is the hope for their communities for their families that's being lost because of our current global trading system and even if you're not a farmer these trade policies impact you or they impact someone you know because just in our own communities local businesses are having to compete  local farmers organic farmers are having to compete with agribusiness and other countries this is not a partisan issue there are people republicans democrats and greens independen libertarians tea party folks who agree that our economic system is broken and what we really need is there to be pressure put on our elected officials to change these models not just to document the problems or maybe to set aside resources for people who have lost their jobs well that is definitely important we need to actually overhaul the policy and we need to look at root causes so we've had a series of events we have been calling into our elected officials we've been sending letters to our elected officials we've had a rally we've had teach in and we're going to continue that these policies are going to be voted on  g to our elected officials offices in d c to to not to remember their constituents to remember they said she way she and of all of us and how trade impacts us and to think about worker standards and labor standards and environmental standards and human rights when they are considering these policies and then there was that incredible art exhibition focused on artists from colombia that  people to stand in solidarity because we in many ways while we're advocating for workers farmers people here in the u s we're not doing it in isolation and we're working in solidarity with people in colombia and south korea and panama who are all organizing against these free trade agreements because it's not one country wins over another it's the corporations of both countries winning and the working people and communities losing are we focused on district offices because there's been a number of recesses and it's really important when our elected officials are in district to make sure we're in front of them as much as possible because when they're in d c they're listening to corporate lobbyists they're not listening to us we then followed up with a huge banner that we had over i five where we reached some forty thousand commuters on their way to work the ultimate lee it comes down to what's important to us  quality of life look like for us what do we value and that should be in our trade policies and we are inviting people to a rally and we had a rally just last week june twenty seven where we basically basically trashed the old trade policy we use the model of sort of an old clunker of a car that is not really working is broken down has the same corporate interest in the driver seat and we're being sold this as a brand new twenty first century trade policy actually it is an old policy that's just been shined up but that nothing has fundamentally changed and so but we didn't want to just trash the old policy we wanted to put something in its place so we invited different representatives from the community from the faith community from the social justice community students fair trade organization and labor organizations we had over thirty organizations represented to talk about what are their values and to actually we had this we have a banner a we the people  are getting back to the constitution that we are the ones who should be the ones deciding what our policies looked like and who are elected officials should be listening to so things like economic justice and democracy and labor rights and indigenous sovereignty and self determination and healthy drinking water and clean air and education for all and the basic things that we all hold true but that our trade policies actually don't contain right now right now labor standards are not in our trade policies the right for people to control what happens to their water and their land or not and our trade policy is right now accountability of corporations not just to their shareholders but to where they do business is and are not in our trade policies right now and so we created a people's trade agreement where we advocated for what we needed and called on our elected officials to include those in all of our future trade agreements and not to cave in to the corporations and agree to these trade deals and we call them trade deals because they do feel that they're happening without public discourse and we need to daylight was happening and for many of you this might be the first and they are hearing about it because mainstream media covering many other things and this is not something that gets covered in detail so if you're sort of wondering and you have a lot of questions about it for sure i encourage you to do your own research because trade does impact all of us and  know it might be something that seems confusing but you working buying commodities you have the power to make choices and your choices matter and asking questions about where things come from and what are the conditions in which they're made is really important and the closer you can be to the people who make your grow your food and make the things that you use the more you can feel you're contributing to your community whether that's buying locally or buying through fair trade or buying through companies that you know are working at the cli it's a way that you can actually make sure your dollars are supporting fair trade you can talk to your neighbors about this and asking questions is really important and that is really where change can happen these issues can seem very broad however ultimately it can be really simple in that we know what's not working and we know there and needs to be a more diverse group at the table to make these much better in and it's not that mysterious we know that there have been labor unions that have been pioneering labor rights social justice groups family farm groups and environmental groups that have been working hard to make sure we have strong health and safety and worker standards and that's what we're calling for and these trade policies it's not anything new it's looking at the international labor organization standards for labor rights and looking out what are the environmental treaties and respecting the rights of other countries as we want the rights in our cities and states and our country to be respected and we don't want corporations to be able to challenge those because ultimately they're able to do business in these countries because the countries are allowing them to do that and they should be adding to the prosperity and the sustainability of those areas and not in any way undermining the hard fought advancements and laws and protections that exist in those countries i mentioned solidarity and sort of what is solidarity mean in in january we had a unique opportunity where a representative from the korean confederation of trade unions a woman named kim jong un came in to share the the effort of labor in communities throughout south korea in opposition to the south korean and u s f d a and she was incredibly inspiring because the cream confederation of trade unions had when when the negotiations were happening in two thousand and six not one but twelve rally is with over one hundred thousand people taking to the streets to call for their government to listen to the needs of the people and this was students and children all the way up to older people that were so politically engaged that they felt they needed to be there they needed to be in the street that their voice mannered and with south korea one of the reasons why we are standing in solidarity with people in korea as well as against south korea and free trade agreement is because of the issues of sweatshops our solidarity work with indigenous and labor organizers in colombia is because colombia is the most dangerous place to be a labor organizer in the last  year forty seven union organizers labor organizers were killed murdered with impunity their assassins were never found whether they  known or not the community members know who is responsible and the justice is not not ever been done and so these these people who have actually just advocated for basic labor rights for their communities for their families have lost their lives and those are the ones who have been who have been killed there are many many many that have been threatened their families have been threatened there's really a situation where labor standards are not upheld and so in solidarity labor organizations throughout colombia and throughout the u s from the a cio to change to win there's really not any labor organization in the u s that is in support of the colombia f d a and there was actually a side deal that was negotiated because there was a general recognition by democrats and republicans alike that the situation in colombia is quite agree just and for us to have a preferential trade agreement when the government will not protect the workers and workers rights in their own country is not something that we want to be a part of so there was a side deal that was negotiated not in the f d a the free trade agreement which is best but it was a side deal and what happened as this as these three bills have been moving it was moved forward without the labor side agreement and this is why side agreements don't work with our policies our free trade policies because unless it's a negotiated in the body they can easily be negotiated out or just not brought forward and this is the case and so even people that had been in support of the colombia f d a are no longer in support and representative i he has said and last there are strong labor standards he would not support the colombia f d a in its current form and so we call on all of the congressional and senate leaders of washington state  oppose all three trade agreements but for sure the colombia f d a because it is the one that is the most egregious has the least labor and human rights protections and has the the the potential to do the most harm for people in colombia farmers communities as well as people here and that is just not what our values are it is by educating ourselves and learning  there's so many different ways of doing these days and then being a part of the political process because when we say we can't make a difference that we're right but if we say we can make a difference and we get involved with different groups that are working on issues that we care about  and or maybe if people are not working on an issue that you care about that you start the group you start asking the questions when we start talking to people about trade that's why we have a fifty three member strong coalition many new members  on the horizon representing tens of thousands of people throughout washington state because when we come together we are very powerful and we remember how in one nine hundred ninety nine here in seattle we advocated for a different way forward on trade and people took to the streets and it made a huge difference and we can do that again and in the future and draw on that power so that we just don't accept what is currently in front of us but i think what