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Different views, common concern Area activists can be found on both sides of the battle over trade agreements By PETER WONG JPR show airs from Seattle For the first time, "The Jefferson Exchange" will move outside the State of Jefferson for a pair of live radio broadcasts from Seattle. A foundation grant will enable its host, Jeff Golden, to go on the air from 8 to 10 a.m. Thursday and Friday from the seat of the World Trade Organization talks. "The Jefferson Exchange" is broadcast on the news and information service of Jefferson Public Radio, KSJK (1230 AM) in Talent and KAGI (930 AM) in Grants Pass. Rebroadcasts will start at 8 p.m. each day. "I want to identify and bring on the air some primary sources to examine claims and counterclaims about what the World Trade Organization does to the environment and workers," Golden said. "This topic has been building in importance; it is the intersection of key issues involving labor, the economy and the environment." The program normally is broadcast from the studios of Jefferson Public Radio at Southern Oregon University. As with regular programs, listeners will be able to call in with questions or comments. Because of set-up requirements, Golden will be absent from Wednesday's broadcast of "The Jefferson Exchange." Golden said in addition to critics who say that liberalization of international trade rules will lead to losses of local and national protection for workers and the environment, he will attempt to attract defenders of freer trade for the program. Golden said his primary interest is in how the WTO will affect environmental protection. Meanwhile on TV Local and other protesters will offer their own views of the World Trade Organization ministerial talks in Seattle with a series of cable access programs on Rogue Valley Community Television. The series of programs, which will originate from Seattle, will be broadcast at 6 p.m. Wednesday and Friday, and 6 p.m. Dec. 6, 8 and 10, all on RVTV cable channel 31. They will be produced by the Independent Media Center in Seattle, Deep Dish Satellite TV and Free Speech TV. Among the independent video crews participating in pool coverage is Oregon Public Employees Union District Four Productions. For vastly different reasons, Conan Riojas of Ashland and Mike Burrill of Medford share a common interest in what is decided in Seattle this week about liberalizing global trade rules. As representatives of 134 member nations of the World Trade Organization gather for the meeting, which opens Tuesday, Riojas will join thousands of protesters -- about 100 of them from the Rogue Valley -- who fear that new trade agreements will weaken worker rights, public health and environmental protection. Riojas, a student at Southern Oregon University and a member of the Student Peace Club, said a campus teach-in last month raised awareness of the stakes for students like him. He is going to Seattle. "Students are so focused on their grades and their personal lives," he said. "I feel that no one really goes out to engage the community, and this is an important global issue. "What we have to do is raise awareness among students. The focus of the teach-in was to do that and encourage enough students to come to Seattle, grasp the bigger picture, participate and try to create a voice for students." Burrill, president of Burrill Resources of Medford and chairman of the Ore-Cal Trade Corp., which manages Medford's foreign-trade zone, said the WTO talks should raise awareness of the stakes for the future prosperity of the Rogue Valley. He is not going to Seattle. "I do not know exactly what is going to come out of it," he said. "But what I can say is that this world is getting smaller, trade is taking place between countries, and we need to remove barriers to trade. "It works both ways, because there are countries that have barriers to our trade and our products. The more we can share across borders and between continents, the bigger the economy is for all of us who sell products." The WTO negotiators are expected to decide an agenda that will indicate how far the next round of talks will go to liberalize trade rules. WTO, founded in 1995, is the successor to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and enforces global trade rules. Most of the protesters are aligned with labor unions, environmental groups and human rights groups. A few, from both the political left and right, are protesting the potential loss of local discretion and national sovereignty implicit in some of the global trade accords. Kerul Dyer, another SOU student and a member of the Anarchist Collective, said it makes for an unusual but potent alliance. "For all of us to go up there to show our unity against this powerful economic body, we can send a message and realize the potential of a new community of interests," she said. Dyer said some WTO critics simply question global trade, but others say their questions are about how the agency has done it in favor of corporations and against local and national governments. Wes Brain of Ashland, an organizer for the Service Employees International Union and Oregon Public Employees Union, said the precedents set by the labor and environmental attachments to the North American Free-Trade Agreement are discouraging. Critics argue that those attachments, intended to ease NAFTA's 1993 ratification by Congress, have done little to stem the flow of U.S. jobs and manufacturing plants across the border to less stringent regulation in Mexico. "We always have had and will have trade agreements," said Brain, who is going to Seattle. "What we need is not free trade but fair trade." Dennis Ferman of Ashland, a member of the anti-corporate Alliance for Democracy, said critics are concerned that the WTO will embrace a new multilateral agreement on investments letting corporations circumvent environmental, human rights or labor standards. An earlier version of the agreement was dropped. "All of these issues are being relegated to secondary consideration to the liberalization of trade," said Ferman, who does not plan to go to the protests. "We know there are chaotic regulations that inhibit world trade, and we all recognize that we need to work out some new agreement. But the problem has been that transnational corporations have taken over the initiative." As an example, Brain said, such an agreement could preclude Ashland's new ordinance that gives preference to purchase of wood products that are certified as coming from forests managed on a sustained basis. The Ashland City Council went on record Nov. 16 opposing a new multilateral agreement that denies local discretion. Burrill said critics are imposing their views of labor and the environment onto other countries. "We cannot push our views of wages, benefits and related conditions onto others," he said. "They can gain that status over time, but it is not appropriate for us to insist that everybody else in the world do things the way we in America do them." National rules can apply to labor or environmental issues but must be "least trade-restrictive" in their applications. Burrill also said national-sovereignty critics are wrong. "If they do not want trade, they have lost sight of what is going on in this world," he said. "It is one big world with the Internet, fast transportation and global trade." Burrill's Ore-Cal Trade Corp. hopes to promote shipment of products from South Korea to the Rogue Valley International-Medford Airport, then overland or by air to other West Coast cities. Tom Crimmins of Peace House in Ashland said he is concerned about the kind of trade that is promoted by the global trade agreements. He said the agreements count arms shipments and economic development, such as logging and clearing of tropical rain forests, that harm national cultures and the global environment. "Instead of addressing these problems, the process goes faster under WTO," said Crimmins, who is going to Seattle. "People need to be able to draw the line." SOU student Riojas said the protests are a prelude to future action that gives people a sense of empowerment. "They can protest what is going on and show solidarity with others who say we do not like what is going on and are not going to take it anymore," he said. "Six months or a year from now, I hope this will raise awareness of what is going on -- and about what people can do next to make a difference." Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA