'Toxic Trader' Street Theater Protesting Free Trade Premiers Outside Gordon Smith's Office

Gordon Smith is being called out by American workers over his record on facilitating unsafe imports.

United Steelworkers began a campaign against toxic trade over a year ago. Courtesy: usw105.org

(PORTLAND, Ore.) - The United Steelworkers will present a primary election day premier of "The Toxic Trader," a street theater production designed to hold elected officials accountable for facilitating unsafe imports. It happens tomorrow, May 20th at noon at One World Trade Center, 121 SW Salmon St., Portland, outside the office of U.S. Sen. Gordon Smith.

Organizers say the special staging for Sen. Smith will include the added attraction of an oversized ballot box in which Oregonians may cast votes for or against his record of supporting Free Trade Agreements that cost Oregon jobs and bring toxic toys into the state. This gives Oregonians an opportunity to make their feelings known since Smith is unopposed in today's primary.

The USW street theater production features three "Toxic Avengers" fending off the gigantic "Toxic Trader," a puppet constructed by world-famous puppeteer Tavia La Follette, whose gargantuan three-dimensional caricatures have toured Europe, Eastern Europe, South America and Japan, almost always making political points.

The script, written by slam poet and USW activist Rebecca Cooper with USW intern Liz Laycak, illustrates the devastating downsides of free trade agreements supported by Smith and presumptive Republican Presidential Nominee Sen. John McCain, including imported toys containing toxic levels of lead and the millions of manufacturing jobs exported over the past two decades.

"The Toxic Trader," will premier outside Smith's office because of what the group considers to be, "his particularly egregious record on trade. Smith has embraced only uncontrolled free trade, as evidenced by the fact that when it came to inserting protection for workers in agreements, he voted against it."

Oregon lost 22,600 manufacturing jobs from 2000 to 2007, according to the Alliance for American Manufacturing, a significant decline since manufacturing accounts for $27.2 billion of the state's gross product, and is the second largest contributor to the state's economy.

"Despite that" the group says, "Smith voted in favor of every free trade deal that came before him."

After Tuesday's premier, the production will travel the country, performing at other senatorial and congressional offices where the occupants have backed free trade agreements, instead of fair trade agreements that have written into them protections for the environment and workers to ensure that at least their own country's labor standards are enforced.

The USW began a campaign against toxic trade over a year ago, with alerts to parents about dangerous levels of lead in imported toys and by distributing lead testing kits.

The USW is the largest manufacturing union in North America, representing 850,000 members in a variety of occupations, from tire making to nursing.