San Francisco labor leaders, South Korean union leader Challenge Pelosi on "Free Trade"

San Francisco Labor Leaders and a visiting South Korean union leader gathered today urging House Speaker Nancy Pelosi not to support the Korean U.S. Free Trade Agreement. Standing in front of the San Francisco Federal Building at 450 Golden Gate Avenue, speakers took turns to discuss the "devastating effect on working people in Korea" as well as working people in the U.S.

Howard Wallace, Vice President of the San Francisco Labor Council, stated that any trade legislation that does not take into account the interests of the workers, consumers, and the environment that's being affected is "not something worthy of support". Representing 150 locals in San Franciso, Wallace said "we are entirely in support of the sisters' and brothers' attempt to prevent their system from being privatized and any legislation that would lend itself th that."

Young Koo Heo, Vice President of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions said that democratic rights and free speech has been under tremendous repression, calling the Fair Trade Agreement an "unfair agreement" and one that benefits big corporations. Heo stated that one million people in Korea don't even have minimum wage and that the FTA would cause employment rates to decline in both countries.

Other speakers, such as Anuradha Mittal from the Oakland Institute, criticized the FTA as "taking away the democratic rights of people in countries like South Korea to determine what kind of trade agreements they really want." She described the agreement as "Basically declaring a war on the poor, not a war on poverty."

Jeff Vogt, Global Economy Specialist, AFL-CIO said that the FTA is a model that provides no protection for the workers' rights and the environment and a bill of rights for multinational corporations. He said the FTA provides "strong intellectual property protections on pharmaceuticals that tend to threaten the healthcare of Korean working people everywhere" and that "it is not the right model for either countries".

Steve Zeltzer of Labor Media stated that Korea has a national healthcare system. He noted that one of the effects of the Korean U.S. Free Trade Agreement is that it would force privatization of the national healthcare system of Korea. "Do we want in the U.S. to force our healthcare system on the people of Korea and people of other countries when so many people (in the U.S.) are not covered by healthcare?" He points out that the FTA would allow drug companies to force Koreans to buy high priced drugs and prevent them from buying generic drugs, furthering the privatization of their healthcare system. It was also stated that workers are going to jail for going on strike. Companies are able to sue workers personally for going on strike because of the cost of going on strike.