Poor Pascal Lamy is in a pickle. But, it’s a pickle that no regular working person should feel bad about. Lamy is the director general of the World Trade Organization (WTO), the international body that oversees global trade agreements. I’m assuming most readers know the basics about the WTO so I’ll just move on here.

In yesterday’s New York Times, Keith Bradsher laments poor Pascal’s predicament–deadlocked trade negotiations over so-called “free trade.” Referring to a previous deadlock almost 15 years ago, Bradsher writes that Lamy “now faces a similar challenge: global trade talks that are at least equally deadlocked after four years under the Doha Development Round, which began in Doha, Qatar in 2001. But it is a measure of the even greater difficulties facing Mr. Lamy in securing an agreement that he does not plan to propose a comprehensive agreement before trade ministers from 149 nations and customs territories gather here on Dec. 13” (“Here” being Hong Kong).

This is good news. As readers here know, I pray for the day when we can bury the useless marketing phrase called “free trade” and move the discussion over to the real issue: so-called “free trade” is simply a set of rules set up to make it easy for capital and investment to move where it pleases, with almost no regard for what such movement does to communities. Labor and environmental questions are after-thoughts, tacked on to agreements as annoying little sideshows but with little power to effect the overall tone of the basic document–oil the way for corporations.

I’m actually not opposed to a world-wide plan for trade–except it has to be governed by rules that are set not by corporate lobbyists (who dominate these trade discussions) but by representatives of communities and workers throughout the world. And, so, the constant pressure being applied to the WTO–most of it coming from countries in the global South–is slowing down the WTO pace. And that’s a good thing.