When World Trade Organization (WTO) protest groups made the Sea Turtle the symbol of opposition to global economic policy, local Seattle activists and organizers from communities of color, immigrant rights groups and women’s organizations stepped forward to reframe the debate.

“We saw the profound deterioration in the conditions of immigrant and women workers worldwide as a direct result of free trade policies, globalization, and privatization,” said Cindy Domingo, founder of the new Workers’ Voices Coalition. “In the U.S., immigrant workers have become scapegoats for the failures of the global economy because U.S. workers don’t see their interests as one and the same with workers in Latin America, Asia or Africa. The WTO coming to our city gave us a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to draw links between conditions faced by working people in developing countries and those faced by immigrants and people of color in the United States.”

The Workers’ Voices Coalition, a dozen local organizations strong (including NNIRR member Washington Alliance for Immigrant and Refugee Justice) raised funds to bring eight international labor rights activists to Seattle for the WTO week and organized a Dec. 4 conference entitled “Women, Immigration and Globalization,” which drew 200 participants.

Several of the speakers described the forced “internal migration” of young women from rural communities to free trade zones in search of work. Amparo Reyes, an electronics assembly worker and member of Comité de La Obrera Fronteriza (Committee of Border Workers) in Piedras Negras, Mexico, spoke of the conditions in the maquiladoras: “With no support system and no understanding of what few rights they have, young women work standing up for 70 hours each week, often with toxic chemicals whose labels and instructions they cannot read.”

Anna Semião de Lima, a domestic worker for 18 years and now the President of the National Federation of Domestic Workers of Brazil, described another aspect of this problem: “Young girls who are forced to go to the big city to look for (domestic worker) jobs later return to the communities they came from as marginalized people. The struggle of Brazilian domestic workers, much like the struggle of immigrant farmworkers in the United States, is to win the same legal status as other workers and gain coverage under Brazil’s social security and labor laws.” Semião also exchanged ideas with representatives from the Domestic Workers’ Union affilated with the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles.

Speakers and participants echoed common themes: the global economy allows capital to cross international borders at will, while placing greater restrictions on workers’ abilities to cross borders. Globalization has led to the destruction of local environments and traditional ways of making a living, forcing many to migrate in search of work. Migrant workers, whether in the U.S., in “free trade zones,” or maquiladora regions, are some of the most exploited workers in the world’s economy, and lack labor protections.

Tyree Scott, president of the Northwest Labor and Employment Law Office (LELO), closed the conference with a call to formulate a workers’ trade agreement: “We have shown the world that we are against the WTO. Now, we must develop our own trade agreements. . . that protect workers’ rights and promote development that benefits all people, especially women and children.” Kristyn Joy is Projects Coordinator at LELO, a founding member of the Seattle-based Workers’ Voices Coalition.

Kristyn Joy is Projects Coordinator at LELO, a founding member of the Seattle-based Workers’ Voices Coalition.