The importance of worker representation

THE NEED for worker rights in Trinidad and Tobago dates back to the period following the abolition of indentureship where there were two distinct classes of people: ruling minority elite and the poor masses.

During this time wages were extremely low since capitalist forces continued to press ahead with their desire to exact maximum profits consistent with slavery and later indentureship, and restore and maintain colonial prosperity.

The call for political independence was intertwined with the demand for better wages and working conditions. The impoverishment of the masses served as the catalyst of solidarity in opposition to the still powerful plantation bourgeois. This scenario formed the milieu for the emergence of a group of proletariat leaders who agitated for working class representation in the governance process.

By 1919, the waterfront strike exploded into a mass movement that demanded social and political reforms, civil and human rights and self-determination for the masses of slave and indentureship descendants. This saw the emergence of the Trinidad Labour Party from the Trinidad Working Men’s Association, led by Andrew Cipriani and organised along the lines of the British Labour Party.

This coincided with the now global push for a new form of governance in the form of workers’ control precipitated by the 1917 Russian Revolution. This served to catalyse worker consciousness globally and on the local front, promoting worker groups to unite in solidarity around issues of low wages and poor working conditions.

The democratic principles of fairness, social justice and equity now formed the cornerstone for the ascension of Cipriani, Sarran Teelucksingh and Timothy Roodal to the Legislative Council in 1925. This threesome catapulted labour activism to the top of the social agenda throughout the country demanding representative government.

By the 1930s modern trade unionism as an integral component of the economy could no longer be restrained. The "Butler Riots" on June 19, 1937, saw workers throughout the oil belt mobilised via a series of public meetings, following a series of strikes in 1934. Tubal Uriah Butler and Adrian Cola Rienzi now emerged as champions of the still impoverished working class.

A major lesson learnt by the proletariat, arising out of the "Butler Riots", was the need to coalesce in solidarity and the importance of political consciousness through proper organisation. This would form the foundation of the concept of collective bargaining and the use of labour as a bargaining tool under the Trade Union Ordinance of 1932. However, these developments were always being undermined by a divide-and-rule strategy of the ruling elite.

By 1939, enhancing working class awareness prompted the emergence of publications like The Socialist, The Pilot, The Vanguard and The People from the ranks of the 13 registered trade unions at the time. As the unions developed, their "workers' agenda" constituted the critical foundation of the political parties that subsequently emerged and the campaign for political independence.

The ensuing decades, leading up to the present, would not only see the fight for political independence won, but the steady improvements in worker emoluments as well as working conditions. These gains would be protected by a series of legislations, thanks to the continuous agitation and advocacy of trade unions.

The resultant overall improvement in living conditions as well as worker rights enshrined in law is the direct outcome of a long and sustained struggle by workers and their representative unions. These rights and privileges cannot be taken for granted and must be guarded jealously against a sustained campaign of trade union demonisation by capitalist interests.

There is no doubt that trade unions and the significant sacrifices of their members of a bygone era have laid the foundation for the modern democratic society we have come to know and unfortunately sometimes take for granted.

The need for workers to unite and empower themselves is as important now as it was back in the 1920s and 1930s, given the emergence of new colonial monarchs in the form of globalisation and multinational mega corporations.

The reluctance of workers, impregnated by ignorance and mistrust of their union leaders, to be members of their recognised union is an exercise in self-destruction. It serves to empower employers to disenfranchise and strip all workers of their right to be treated with dignity and respect.

Failure to unite would give a renewed impetus for workers to be exploited by profit-driven corporations that, motivated by obscene greed, will gleefully embrace the spectre of workers undermining their own interests by refusing to be a part of and supportive of their union.