Photo by Jon Brier.

Blue Diamond Organizing Committee members Leza Almanza and Ann Hurlbut join South Korean sisters in carrying one of the lead banners at the Seattle march against the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (KORUS-FTA) Sept. 6.

Talks on the KORUS-FTA opened in Washington, D.C, in June and continued in Seoul in July, dogged by spirited demonstrations in both cities. The U.S. Trade Representative tried to keep the site of the third round secret as long as possible, but that didn’t squelch the protests. The opening march and rally Sept. 6 kicked off a four-day whirl of pickets and marches, educational and social events, capped by civil disobedience on the last day. Day by day and minute by minute, the actions rolled.

“You don’t pause,” Almanza said. “While we were running we were yelling, ‘Down, down, FTA!’ You’d be yelling while you lay down in the street for a minute, then you’d get up and walked, chanting and yelling. You were exhausted but it was exhilarating.”

The Koreans sent a 75-person delegation to Seattle, made up mostly of members of unions, farmers’ and women’s groups. About 750 U.S. labor and community activists joined them in the streets for the opening rally Sept. 6, including about 250 members of ILWU locals 4, 5, 8, 9, 19, 23, 52 and the IBU.

“People ask why the ILWU opposes free trade when it makes more work for us,” Local 23 President Conrad Spell said. “We don’t oppose trade, but it has to be responsible. The agreements have to include workers’ rights, human rights and environmental protection.”

Blue Diamond Growers shows why. Sacramento-based Blue Diamond runs the world’s largest almond processing plant. It has responded to its workers’ efforts to join ILWU warehouse Local 17 with a nasty anti-union campaign. The National Labor Relations Board found it guilty of more than 20 labor law violations. And while it flouted the right to organize, Blue Diamond asked for special treatment under KORUS-FTA. It asked that duties on almonds imported into Korea be dropped.

At the end of the Sept. 6 march and rally, about 30 South Korean delegates and 25 members of the ILWU family called on a Seattle customer of Blue Diamond, locally owned Fran’s Chocolates.

“We couldn’t all fit in their small office,” Almanza said. “We asked for the manager. He came out in a hairnet like he just came off the factory floor, eyes wide, looking scared.”

After hearing their story, he agreed to send a letter to Blue Diamond asking it to sign a neutrality agreement with the ILWU.

—Marcy Rein