organizing contingent workers. In November 30, 1999 the KCLC was a key player in a nationwide historical event, the protests of the World Trade Organization Ministerial Conference (WTO). The protests set for the Washington Trade and Convention Center in Seattle sought to emphasize 21st century free trade as promoted by the supporters of economic globalization, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). A broad coalition of progressive activists protested the larger effects of globalization in terms of issues like environmental protection and animal rights issues. The KCLC, along with many other pro-labor groups, voiced its concerns on "forced labor and substandard working conditions in developing countries, where increasing numbers of U.S. corporations were relocating to take advantage of cheap labor." The environmentalists and pro-labor activists protested side by side facing very aggressive law enforcement tactics that included the used tear gas and curfews. Then KCLC Executive Secretary Treasurer Ron Judd, established a "Hate Free Zone" at the Seattle Labor Temple in the downtown Belltown neighborhood as a place where protesters would not be harassed by law enforcement. 2000–2020 The first major labor action in the new century occurred in 2000 when the KCLC actively supported aerospace giant Boeing's striking engineers and technicians as represented by the then unaffiliated Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (SPEEA). The KCLC's affiliated AFL–CIO unions joined together with SPEEA during a 31-day strike against Boeing. As a result of the success of the strike SPEEA affiliated with the International Professional and Technical Employees Union and the KCLC. By 2003 the issue of immigrant rights came to the fore with then KCLC Executive Secretary Steve Williamson, voicing his support of the "Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride"' – a bus trip of immigration activists from all over the U.S. to Washington D.C. The KCLC by then had helped establish the nonprofit "Hate Free Zone Campaign of Washington" leveraging the success associated with the Hate Free Zone WTO effort into a new organization devoted to advocating for immigrant rights. In 2005 the KCLC joined a Seattle protest against the War in Iraq. This 5,000-strong protest mirrored a much larger protest in Washington D.C. on September 24, 2005. The nation's capitol protest included tens of thousands of anti-war activists. In 2005 the KCLC changed its name to the "Martin Luther King Jr. County Labor Council" (MLKCLC). In 2005 the KCLC charity division changed the name "King County