Demo Preceded by Teach-In at UWM Where Labor, Farm, Other Experts Discuss Good Trade Policy to Replace Both the NAFTA-Style Trade Deals that Gutted Milwaukee and Trump’s Broken Trade Promises and Continued Backroom Deals that also Prioritize Billionaire CEOs over Working People
Milwaukee, Wis. — Union members, family farmers and other Wisconsinites will gather near the opening of the G20 Trade Ministerial for a “Fair Trade for Working Families” demonstration expressing anger over broken trade promises and calling on the Trump administration and other officials to adopt fair trade policies that prioritize the interests of working people, small farmers and main street businesses. Speakers will include local labor leaders and the president of the Wisconsin Farmers Union.
The protest will be preceded by a Teach-In “Working Families vs. Oligarchs: The Stakes of Milwaukee’s G-20 Trade Minister Summit” at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee that will spotlight the good trade policies that can help rebuild the communities like Milwaukee nationwide that were slammed from decades of corporate-rigged trade policy. The Teach-In is a conversation moderated by The Nation’s Executive Editor John Nichols with panelists from the Wisconsin UAW, Wisconsin Farmers Union, Sierra Club, UW-Madison and Rethink Trade.
The Trump administration chose Milwaukee to host the G-20 Trade Ministerial to show other countries the devasting economic impact of corporate-driven race-to-the-bottom trade deals that offshore jobs, drive down wages and weaken our country with deindustrialization. But today U.S. manufacturing jobs and investment in new U.S. factory construction is down and the trade deficit in manufactured goods is bigger since Trump returned to the White House. The protestors will communicate that they have had enough of the broken promises to fix our trade mess. As trade officials from around the world meet, working people and independent farmers demand fair trade policies that put their interests ahead of the billionaires and big corporations still shaping U.S. trade policy.
| WHAT: | Teach-In | Demonstration |
| WHEN: | Tues. Sept. 29, 6:00 p.m. | Wed. Sept. 30, 10:15 a.m. |
| WHERE: | Curtain Hall Room 175 3243 N. Downer Ave Milwaukee, Wis. | 941 E. Wisconsin Ave Milwaukee, Wis. |
| VISUALS: | At protest, dozens of tombstones representing Wisconsin factories shuttered by unfair trade deals; people with signs, banners | |
The demonstration is endorsed by the Milwaukee Area Labor Federation, Wisconsin’s South Central Federation of Labor, American Federation of Teachers (AFT) Local 212, Citizen Action of Wisconsin, Citizens Trade Campaign, Milwaukee Area Service and Hospitality Workers Union, Our Revolution Wisconsin, Peace Action of Wisconsin, Public Citizen, Sierra Club, Trade Justice Education Fund, United Auto Workers (UAW) Wisconsin State CAP Council, United Food & Commercial Workers (UFCW) 1473, Wisconsin Farmers Union and others.
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