Before Seattle on November 30, most Americans thought WTO was a radio station in Cincinnati. Now the whole world knows WTO stands for World Trade Organization.

What is WTO? WTO is a group of 134 nations linked by trade treaties whose ostensible purpose is to reduce trade barriers globally. In practice, it has become a means for Organized Money in the form of huge multinational corporations to impose slave-like conditions on workers and to overturn national, state, and local laws which multinationals oppose.

WTO began in 1946 as GATT--General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. Headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, for many years it was a diplomatic debating society. It is composed of bureaucrats and trade ministers, none of which are elected. Labor is specifically excluded from its discussions. And it deliberates in secret--members only.

In 1995 GATT metamorphosed into the WTO with new--and frightening--powers.

Perhaps the greatest threat to labor is the ability of the WTO to overturn national, state, or local laws at the stroke of a pen. Under WTO's world court function, any member can object to any statute or rule of another nation as being an "impediment to world trade." The WTO then has the power to overturn the objectionable statute or rule--without the consent of the nation which passed it--and to levy heavy fines on that nation. In effect, the power of the WTO exceeds that of Congress and the U.S. Supreme Court.

For example, U.S. law required shrimp fishers to use see turtle exclusion nets which allowed sea turtles to escape drowning if caught in a net meant for tuna. Other fishing nations did not have such laws. The WTO ruled this U.S. statute invalid and levied heavy fines on the U.S.

What does it mean for BMWE? Obviously, we believe in solidarity. What hurts steelworkers today also hurts us and can destroy us tomorrow. World trade provisions that today allow steelworkers jobs to be exported to foreign labor could tomorrow allow that foreign labor to be imported to do our jobs.

More directly, North American railroads are directly involved in world trade. We haul many of the goods exported from or imported to the U.S. and Canada. Plus, because many modern ships are too big to go through the Panama Canal, containers bound from Japan to Europe are off loaded on our West Coast, shipped by rail to the East Coast, and reloaded for Europe.

Recently we won a victory on travel allowance. All BMWE labor agreements have restrictions on out-contracting. FRA, FELA, and railroad retirement are federal statutes on which we depend. All these benefit us but impose necessary, often negotiated, restrictions on rail management.

Under WTO, any member nation can object to any provision of our labor agreements (like travel allowance or out-contracting) or of FRA, FELA, and railroad retirement. And, the WTO has the power to invalidate that provision of said contract or statute. In secret. Without negotiation. Without the voters' consent.

As responsible trade unionists, we cannot let that happen to us.

That's why BMWE joined the AFL-CIO's call to resist the WTO, demanding "Fair Trade, not Free Trade." On November 30, 1999, thirty BMWE members from the U.S. and Canada joined more than 30,000 trade unionists from around the world to march against WTO's exclusion of labor's voice and to protest WTO's refusal to adopt fair labor standards for member countries.

At Seattle, a hand-printed sign read "Teamsters and Turtles. United at Last." Before Seattle, many environmentalists looked on labor as greedy, beer swilling cretins. Many workers thought of environmentalists as tree-hugging flakes. Farmers were seen as wealthy despoilers of the land. Seattle began to break down these stereotypes.

The media focused on the violence of a few unthinking anarchists and drug thugs. BMWE joins the world in denouncing these acts.

The real story at Seattle is the alliance among labor, environmentalists, farmers, and churches toward a common goal--reform of or ending the WTO. Each group has different primary interests, but each now better understands the goals, strategy, and the tactics of the others.

Labor knew how to demonstrate peacefully and properly. Labor was praised locally and nationally for organization, decorum, and discipline. Labor joined responsible environmentalists, farmers, and churches in resisting the efforts of Organized Money to destroy, via the WTO, laws vital to all of us.

The alliances made by labor with other groups on the road to Seattle were cemented in the solidarity shown in the Battle in Seattle. Just as each individual in BMWE has different personal interests, but when we as individuals work together as a union, we accomplish more for all of us than any one of us could do alone, so each group at Seattle had different primary interests but together we accomplished a common goal--defeat of the WTO agenda that no one group could have accomplished alone.

The lessons we have learned in the past century were highlighted as we are ready to enter the next millennium--that being the Battle of Seattle was about solidarity--an injury to one is an injury to all. If we remember and practice the solidarity of Seattle, the politicians that got us into WTO will begin listening to working people again!