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Chinese labor and human rights activist Wei Jingsheng.

Sweeney introduced Chinese labor and human rights activist Wei Jingsheng, who, originally sentenced to death for posting a human rights declaration in 1979, spent 18 years in prison where he suffered years of torture and forced labor.

"When Chinese workers are locked up in factories and earn only $100 per month, American workers and workers all over the world are endangered," Wei explained through an interpreter.

House Democratic Whip David Bonior, D-Mich., the Congressional leader of the fight against permanent NTR for China, said, "We’re for an America where no working mom or dad ever has to awake at night worrying what’s going to happen to their family because their job, their paycheck, and their future was ripped off, boxed up and shipped away to a factory in China."

Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., stressed that "partisanship has no place in the struggle for equality, fairness and observance of human rights."

Such comments resonated with rally participants like those from UAW Local 985 in Detroit, Mich.

"Many of our jobs will be the first to go," says Local 985 President Dale Callaway, whose local has suffered through two cross-border runaway shop closings and the loss of 250 jobs in the last year alone. A third plant shutdown--and move to Mexico--is in the pipeline.

Roopa Goona from Students Against Sweatshops

Other speakers included Friends of the Earth President Brent Blackwelder, Roopa Goona from Students Against Sweatshops, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., Rev. Seamus Finn, director of Justice and Peace at Mary Immaculate in New York City, and AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka and Executive Vice President Linda Chavez-Thompson.

In addition, five other national union presidents spoke including Teamsters President James Hoffa, American Federation of Teachers President Sandra Feldman, Steelworkers President George Becker, AFSCME President Gerald McEntee, and Jay Mazur, president of UNITE.

But no speaker said what it was all about more simply--or better--than 16-year-old Ben Bonnough, the son of a UAW Local 12 member at the Jeep factory in Toledo, Ohio, interviewed just before the rally began."I want to stand up for justice for American workers and Chinese workers and for what’s right."

Fred Solowey