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Fair trade rally targets Cargill
15 July 2012
| HOPKINS - Minnesotans rallied outside Cargill offices to protest corporate control of international trade negotiations and demand that negotiating texts of the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade agreement be made available to lawmakers, the media and the public. |
“Right now, hundreds of corporate lobbyists from companies like Cargill are in San Diego, writing rules that will override existing federal state and local protections for the environment, consumer safety. And they’re doing it in total secrecy,” said Josh Wise of the Minnesota Fair Trade Coalition.
“Trade deals like NAFTA have been nothing more than corporate giveaways and have led to job loss, environmental destruction, and unsafe consumer products.”
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Citizens from a variety of backgrounds gathered outside Cargill headquarters in Hopkins to call for public accountability in trade talks.
Photo courtesy of the Minnesota AFL-CIO |
Speakers at the rally included Bob Ryan of the United Steelworkers, who talked about the impact of free trade on jobs; Dwight Ault, a farmer from Southern Minnesota, who discussed the effects of free trade on local agriculture; and Gerardo Cajamarca, a union leader from Colombia, who gave an impassioned speech about the horrible human rights abuses Cargill has perpetrated thanks to trade deals which allow them to force people off their land and live in fear for trying to work in decent conditions for non-slave wages.
The TPP is a trade pact between 11 countries on the Pacific Rim: The USA, Canada, Mexico, Peru, Chile, Vietnam, Singapore, Brunei, Malaysia, Australia and New Zealand.
For more information
Visit the Minnesota Fair Trade Coalition website |
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