VINNY O’BRIEN
Assistant Director of Organization and Field Service, AFL-CIO
I got into Seattle several months early to lay the groundwork. My responsibility was the AFL-CIO and its labor community and affiliates. A number of staff followed me. Probably 65 were working full time on it.
My initial objective was the I-5 corridor, from Vancouver to San Francisco. We had a whole host of avenues to reach our members, through newsletters, membership meetings, bulletin boards, all to -inoculate our membership to the importance of a labor activist day in Seattle during the WTO.
We knew we were in for something big. We set a goal, to turn out 25,000 workers. We wound up with 40,000, according to the police.
JOE SZWAJA
Teacher, Nova High School
I taught a history class about the WTO with my colleague Bobby Morrison that year. We brought two people in to do theater and puppetry, and the students helped write an original mini play. It dramatized the WTO’s ideology—that any barriers to profits are “unfair.” We made the puppets, and as we worked on the play we decided to perform it not only at school but on the streets during the protests.
KATHY SCHWARTZ
Convention and Visitors Bureau
We continued planning, but the anxiety mounted. We felt betrayed by the White House, though no one would say so overtly. The story went that John Sweeney, the president of the AFL-CIO, had called Bill Clinton to complain about the administration’s support for trade over jobs. After that, White House enthusiasm for the meeting shrank. And if the White House wasn’t behind it, why would business support it? Fundraising bogged down even as costs rose—especially for security.
The weeks before the conference had an air of unreality. We worked at our assigned tasks—mine was to manage the local host activities desk at the Sheraton—while Armageddon loomed. We had given up hopes of a glittering success. We just hoped nothing too awful would happen. Short of buildings being bombed and people being killed, what finally happened was about as bad as it could have been.
SHERIFF DAVE REICHERT
King County
Training was a source of some frustration for a lot of the police departments outside Seattle. Once it became clear to everybody how big the problem would be, joint training occurred. But there was a feeling that this would be more or less a peaceful protest and the number of officers in the Seattle Police Department would be adequate to handle it. Most of the police chiefs and sheriffs were involved in some planning meetings, and I was, too, but not to the degree we should have been.
JIM PUGEL
Seattle Police Captain, WTO Field Commander
I don’t know if it was competition, but Sheriff Reichert said he couldn’t afford to send any sheriffs for training that year because they already had the Boeing flight museum, the bus tunnel, and something else to look after. And that they were already trained.
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Published: November 2009
Lots of insight in this entertaining story. Good job Eric and team!
You captured the inside story better than most other story I’ve seen. Pretty good ten years after the fact!
Maybe readers will be moved to learn more about how corporate dominated globalism is negatively affecting all of our lives. The corporate dominated WTO is still promoting its agenda of profits over people. These policies are largely responsible for the current global economic crisis that is still unfolding.
Fortunately, a growing world-wide grassroots movement is still at work promoting sustainable economics, democracy, and justice. That movement expressed itself in Seattle ten years ago, however imperfectly. Whether we acknowledge it or not, we are all in debt to a relatively small group of people who worked together to change the trajectory of history.
Great work, thanks.
600 people were arrested and jailed during WTO; how many were convicted?
zbz
“we are all in debt to a relatively small group of people”
yes, yes you are — to the same globalist financiers who funded the protestors through foundations only so they could be hung out to dry afterwards as the globalization juggernaut became further insulated. See Soros, George: Open Society.
Good reporting!
I was in the streets that entire week, and the only violence I personally witnessed was from the police. I encourage everyone who cares about what really happened in Seattle that week to read David and Rebecca Solnit’s book which is just days from being released: “The Battle of the Story of the Battle of Seattle”. David was one of many early visionaries in making this event such a huge success.
I’m also thrilled that the ex-police-chief ended up working for the reform of marijuana laws. The existing laws are a disgrace in this so-called democratic society.
Thanks again, Eric Scigliano!
I was in the streets that entire week, and the only violence I personally witnessed was from the police. I encourage everyone who cares about what really happened in Seattle that week to read David and Rebecca Solnit’s book which is just days from being released: “The Battle of the Story of the Battle of Seattle”. David was one of many early visionaries in making this event such a huge success.
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Got some great information here. I think that if more people thought about it that way, theyd have a better time understanding the issue. Your view is definitely something Id like to see more of. Thanks for this blog. Its fantastic and so is what youve got to say.You make a great point.
More than 20 years and we are in the same point, maybe worst in term of unequality of tradings between reach & poors. The crisis haven’t changed the rules…
I’ve seen. Pretty good ten years after the fact!