By Jonathan Hodge and sean Purdy
The Third Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization (WTO) will take place this year from November 29 to December 3 in Seattle. On the agenda at the conference will be agreements that affect everything from public transit, to education, labour law, the environment, and public health care.
The WTO was created in the wake of the 1995 "Uruguay Round" of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) negotiations.
The original GATT was designed specifically as a trade agreement, whereas the new WTO is much more all-encompassing.
It can define almost any local, regional, or national attempt to maintain environmental standards, labour practices, or public social services as a possible 'non-tariff trade barrier'. This means it can step in and impose sanctions on any member state who attempts to for example, maintain a public health care system (public health care would present a trade barrier to private health care providers moving in).
The implications are devastating. Public services like health care, education even transit subsidies for the elderly, the poor, and students will come under the agreement and so be subject to the vicious priorities of the market.
€ The WTO is a threat to social services -- The WTO meetings will also discuss plans for undermining the public sector by allowing private companies to move into service areas such as education, health care, social services, and government supply and service procurement.
For instance, WTO plans call for changing the law concerning public education to allow private education companies, such as the anti-union University of Phoenix, to compete with public education authorities.
€ The WTO is a threat to unions -- Government laws stipulating the hiring of union workers for infrastructure and service projects would be seen under the WTO as unfair competition to private competitors. This is an attack on the union movement and the ability of citizens to ensure safe and community-oriented building projects.
€ The WTO is a threat to the environment -- Environmental regulations to protect workers and the community have been singled out in the WTO plans as "barriers" to "fair trade." The WTO wants to give multinational corporations the right to produce genetically modify foods and market them without informing consumers. The WTO wants to give firms like Montsanto the right to dominate the market for seeds and other products that farmers rely on to grow their crops.
€ The WTO is a threat to farmers -- The WTO wants to do away with marketing boards, subsidies, and other trade regulations so that huge agri-businesses can corner the market in food. In countries like Canada and the U.S., this will severely harm an already devastated family farm sector. In the developing world, it threatens to wipe out many small producers.
The WTO in effect picks up where the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) left off. It is the latest attempt by rulers around the world to force through an extremely dangerous and intensely undemocratic set of global rules designed to make it easier for them to extract profits from our work, and move money to economic hot spots to make a quick buck.
The logic of the market means that profits are pursued even if it means destroying the environment or destroying workers lives. The economic instability brought on by the market has meant that bosses are trying to come up with ways to survive and make more profits, and the WTO will help them do just that. It allows any company to sue a local government for 'lost potential profits' if the local government implements 'non-tariff trade barriers' like accessible education, affordable housing, unemployment insurance, etc.
Employers' Offensive
It is important to see the WTO as part and parcel of the overall corporate agenda. Corporations and governments who do their bidding have been paving the way for the WTO for years. The attack on our education, health and social services by the federal Liberal government and provincial governments has legitimized cutbacks and given the corporations the green light for further attacks by negotiating trade agreements completely for This is not a case of the US bullying Canada. Canadian capitalists are competitive the world over.
The federal Liberal government of Jean Chrétien is leading the chorus of ruling class voices in support of the WTO initiatives.
Canada plays Mini-Me to America's Dr. Evil.
We need to fight the WTO, not because it threatens Canadian sovereignty, but because it threatens the working class.