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By Martin P. Felix
May 1, 2006
[Part 1 of 2]
“Ever since the day of creation
Mankind has been struggling on
If you want to get rid of exploitation
and foreign occupation you have to struggle on”
Black Wizard “Struggle”
"Workers of the world awaken. Break your
chains, demand your rights.
All the wealth you make is taken, by exploiting
parasites.
Shall you kneel in deep submission from your
cradle to your grave.
Is the height of your ambition to be a good and
willing slave?"
Joe Hill "Workers of the World"
On May 1, 2006, Grenadians like their comrades
around their world will congregate in the
thousands to celebrate Labor Day.
This year’s celebrations mark the 120th
anniversary of a holiday that has its roots in
United States. On May 1, 1886, the Federation of
Organized Trade and Labor Unions passed a
resolution declaring that the full and legal
workday will now constitute eight hours. Prior
to this legislation, it was not uncommon for
workers to toil 16 or 17 hours a day without due
compensation.
These developments did not happen overnight nor
did it only reflect the conditions of labor in
the USA. May Day stands as evidence of the maxim
that victory for workers anywhere is a victory
for workers everywhere.
The eight-hour cause had swollen to a quarter of
a million workers by April of 1886, and by May
Day 350,000 workers were involved in a general
strike for the regular work day that many take
for granted today. When May Day was recognized
in the US, multitudes of Africans throughout the
Americas were only recently officially out of
bondage. Puerto Rico, Cuba and Brazil (1873,
1886, and 1888 respectively) being the last
territories in the Americas to be emancipated
from what was for all intents and purposes ‘free
labor’. The abolitionist cause helped bolster
the eight-hour cause, and vice versa.
May is also the occasion of a related
anniversary, the 149 anniversary of the arrival
of Indentured workers in Grenada. The “spice
island of the west” had a significant share of
the more than half a million Asians (primarily
East Indians) who came to the Caribbean as
indentured servants.
Coincidentally, the first batch of East Indian
indentured servants arrived in Grenada on May 1,
1857. Between 1838 and 1917, 238,909 migrants
from the British controlled sub-continent were
dispersed throughout the Caribbean; some 3,200
arrived in Grenada between 1857 and 1885. The
arrival of East Indian indentured migrants in
the Americas is celebrated around May 3 and 4th
in Guyana and Trinidad (the territories
receiving the largest share of these immigrants)
as (East) Indian Arrival Day.
It is often missed that East Indians were not
the only indentured servants to have arrived in
Grenada in significant numbers. Batches were
brought in from Sierra Leone (embankment point
for much of West Africa), Madeira, and Malta.
The majority of indentured farmers brought to
Grenada remained and became independent
peasants. Sometimes referred to as indentured
slavery, the system was often as harsh as
chattel slavery.
Partly due to this influx, about
⅓
of the adult male population after emancipation
was small holders, with the remainder working on
estates in a feudal relationship.
The introduction of indentured laborers in the
Caribbean in such great numbers at fixed labor
rates and below the post-slavery wage norms was
a strategy of the colonial government and the
Caribbean plantocracy to depress wage levels and
keep it at a certain level. This was effective
in maintaining the profitability of the
plantation system.
Slavery was abolished in 1833 but the planters
tried to keep the ex-slaves in a system of
unpaid apprenticeship with brutal repression.
The indentured servants were brought in to take
over the slaves’ labor on the plantation. The
majority of ex-slaves became independent
farmers.
The newly freed slaves understood naturally what
Karl Marx was writing volumes about with his
observations of surplus value with the
industrial revolution that was unfolding before
him. This antagonism of circumstances that
Africans and the newly arrived Indians were
placed in would set the stage for the bad
relations between the East Indian and African
communities, the legacy of which exists even
today. One the other hand the free African
(indentured) presence has contributed to notably
strong African retention in Grenada.
East Indian worker were involved in some of the
earliest labor protest in the Caribbean. The
abolition of chattel slavery, the introduction
of indentured laborers, and the various waves of
labor struggles throughout the Caribbean, were
different phases of the constant struggle of
Caribbean People's continuing quest for full
emancipation.
The fact that there were always these phases of
labor upsurge throughout the region reflect the
common distressing economic conditions that
prevailed. All too often the militancy of the
regional movement of labor rights and social
emancipation were thwarted by violent repression
(police brutality and military intervention),
and aided by repressive legislation (such as the
Riot Act).
A very important aspect of the struggle for
workers right in Grenada and the wider Caribbean
was the struggle for representation. In 1917 the
Grenada Representative Association was formed.
Its membership included both a radical wing, led
by William Galway Donovan and a conservative
wing, led by D.S. DeFretias. The radical wing
advocated a completely elected legislature while
the conservative wing advocated a limited
elected representation. Very advanced for its
time, a compromise decision allowed for both
elected and non-elected representation.
Even when trade unions were made legal in
Britain in 1871, it took several decades of
struggle before the right to strike in the
Caribbean became legal. Legislation forbidding
strikes in the region were enacted in the
mid-nineteenth century and bolstered by the
Protection of Property Act of 1905. These
measures, however repressive, did not prevent a
heightening of labor demands leading up to WW1.
The first worker organizations were benevolent
societies, providing members with sickness and
death benefits. By not being unions, per se,
these organizations were able to avoid the
anti-trade union laws.
However, the situation changed rapidly during
WWI because of several related reasons - the
escalating cost of living; wartime depravations;
reports of racial discrimination experienced by
West Indian soldiers overseas who serving the
empire. In Guyana in 1916, hundreds of workers
signed a petition calling for wage increases and
reduction of the working day from 11.5 to 10
hours. There were similar waves of strikes and
protest action throughout the region around
similar demands, often led by ex-soldiers.
One such leader was Grenada-born Tubal Uriah
“Buzz” Butler. Returning to Grenada, Butler
joined the Grenada Representative Government
Movement and founded the Grenada Union of
Returned Soldiers in 1919. An oil worker, Butler
migrated to Trinidad to work in the oil sector
but became incapacitated because of injury. A
Baptist preacher during retirement, he became
renowned when he led a hunger march to Port of
Spain on the behalf of dismissed employees of
the Apex Oilfields Ltd. Butler had a great
appeal to Grenadian and other eastern Caribbean
migrants who were proletarianized in the oil
fields of Trinidad.
Later Butler would become a wanted man by the
colonial authorities for planning a major strike
of oilfield workers, which commenced at midnight
on 18-19 June 1937 at Forest Reserve and Fyzabad.
As he addressed a large meeting, an attempt was
made by soldiers and paramilitary to arrest him.
The crowd rescued Butler. Riot broke out and a
hated police corporal was drenched with oil and
burned alive. Guerilla-style workers action
flashed to various areas of Trinidad. The riots
ended with a combination of brutal repression
and some concession to the striking workers.
One of the shortcomings of the Butler riots was
the lack of a clear working-class objective to
challenge the status quo. The Butler riots would
continue to aspire generations of struggles in
the region, including inspiring Eric Matthew
Gairy who is said to have been a witness to the
Butler riots. There were similar riots
throughout the Caribbean during the thirties.
Grenada was a notable exception, albeit not for
very long.
End of part one.
Historians are baffled that Grenada remained
relatively quiet while a wave of labor strikes
and protests swept the Caribbean during the
1930s. Some attribute this to the relatively
larger composition of independent peasant
farmers that made up the fabric of the working
population.
Hart speculates that another contributing factor
in the delayed effect of this regional upsurge
of rebellion in Grenada was may have well been
that the Grenadian working masses had greater
faith in the efficacy of political
representations in Grenada then elsewhere. He
attributes this to “the immense popularity and
reputation of T Albert Marryshow, Member of the
Legislative Council, whose orientation was
entirely political.” (Hart: 1998, p124).
Others give equal weight to shrewd maneuvering
on the part of the Grenada ruling classes. The
Grenada legislature made trade unions legal in
1933, with limitations in regards to picketing
and other liability measures. Efforts by
progressive lawmakers like T.A Marryshow to have
these aspects removed were not immediately
successful.
George Brizan argues that: "The Grenadian estate
owners, the employers of agricultural labor, who
were spared these holocausts, took heed of the
saying "when your neighbors' house is on fire,
wet yours". It was solely for this reason that
there were voluntary agreements and co-operation
with the authorities whenever they recommended a
wage increase."
One of the conclusions of the Moyne Commission
that visited Grenada in 1939 was the absence of
trade unions in a territory with such a large
percentage of Agricultural workers. The
commission urged for provisions to be made for
representation of rural workers. Although the
Grenada Union of Teachers existed since 1913, it
was not registered until almost half-century
later.
Grenada’s first registered union was the
short-lived Grenada Trades Union in 1937. Soon
to follow was the St John’s Labor Party (later
changed to the Grenada Labor Party/General
Workers Union) that emerged in 1929 but was not
registered until 1941. Between 1940 and 1949 the
three primary unions representing Grenadians
workers were, the St John’s Labor Party/General
Workers Union, the Grenada Trade Union, and the
St George’s Workers Union/Grenada Workers Union.
The 1937 commission of Enquiry into the economic
conditions of Grenadian workers across various
classes of wage earners primarily in the
agricultural industry “revealed that the
agricultural laborer’s wages were grossly
inadequate, as was his housing, clothing and
health-care. Tuberculosis, yaws, hookworm,
malaria, gastro-enteritis, and venereal disease
were widespread among the working people and
their families, and by 1940, the infant
mortality rate exceeded 115 per 1000.” The
report further highlighted that laborers were
ostracized politically. (Brizan: 1984, p.256) It
was a reflection of the class collaborationist
nature of these early unions that only
miniscule, incremental gains were wrestled from
the Grenadian property class.
The situation changed radically when Eric Gairy
and Gascoigne Blaize returned to Grenada around
1950-51. The two were oil refinery workers in
Aruba and both got their training in labor
organizing as members of the Aruba Labor Union.
Then a young union organizer, Eric Matthew Gairy
registered the Grenada Manual and Mental Workers
Union (GMMWU) in 1950 and almost immediately
spearheaded Grenada's first general strike. The
GMMWU had wrestled the initiative from the
existing establishment unions and within three
months was the main bargaining body of
agricultural workers due largely to Gairy’s
populist rhetoric and charisma.
As the strike continued, Gairy was banished to
Carriacou by the Governor. Mass protest engulfed
the agricultural based communities, forcing the
Governor to return Gairy to Grenada, and turning
Gairy into a working class idol.
Gairy quickly capitalized on the situation by
creating the Grenada People's Party (which later
evolved into the Grenada United Labor Party) in
which he participated in the October 1951
elections winning a surprising 71% of the vote
and getting six of the eight seats in parliament
as well as several spots in the cabinet.
Gairy came in like a hurricane and overshadowed
TA Marryshow, considered the most respected
figure among the working-class at the time.
Gairy’s winning of adult suffrage in 1950
(long-pursued goal of Marryshow) led directly to
the replacement of Marryshow as the dominant
political figure. Whereas Marryshow was middle
class, Gairy was working-class and appealed to
the working-class and the peasantry. Gairy would
dominate the island's politics for almost three
decades.
It is ironic that workers strike brought Gairy
in and another workers strike was the catalyst
for the beginning of his demise: it was the
nurses strike of 1970 that ushered in Maurice
Bishop as a new champion of the Grenada
working-class. Mass protest was also one of the
sparks that led to fusing of a radical
working-class Grenada opposition. A protest in
rural St Davids against colonialist’s claim to
Lasagesse encouraged the fusion of two
working-class tendencies from different regions
of the country to form the New Jewel Movement (NJM)
in 1972.
NJM’s replacement of Gairy in 1979 was met by
great enthusiasm by the Grenadian working
people. And never before in Grenada’s history
was working people and trade unions were as
represented in a government in the Caribbean in
general and Grenada in particular.
The NJM rule saw another phase of the
organization and status of labor in Grenada.
There was a flowering of trade unionism and
several laws were passed protecting workers from
workplace abuse, such as the Maternity Leave Law
of 1980, which protected women from the common
practice of being fired by their employers due
to pregnancy.
There was also a growth of trade union
representation. During the revolution, efforts
towards creating a “popular democracy” of
grassroots decision-making were making steady
progress. Trade union membership reached 80%
under the new mandatory union recognition law, a
novelty in the Caribbean at the time. Trade
unions, the National Youth Organization, the
National Women’s Organization, and other such
“organs” of democracy, elected delegates from
their membership to take part in the programs of
the revolution [EPICA: 1985, p99].
Also, for the first time in the history of the
English-speaking Caribbean, there was a
conscious, institutionalized, state-funded
effort to educate workers in terms of their
intrinsic self-interest with the introduction of
Worker Education Classes in workplaces
throughout Grenada. There was also a tremendous
growth in Grenada union association with
progressive trade union affiliations, such as
the International Labor Organization, and its
counterparts in the Caribbean, Latin America,
and around the world.
The demise of the revolution saw another phase
of unionism in Grenada, as the traditional May
Day celebrations assumes maturity and becomes
institutionalized, taking advantage of the
momentum provided by the revolution era. May Day
in the post-revolution era reflects the polarity
of the gap between the interest of workers and
the subsequent administrations, assuming a
healthy alternative democratic space.
A new challenge for labor in the Caribbean is
impending Caribbean Single Market and Economy (CSME).
New year 2006 was ushered in with Caribbean
governments signing the historic step of
formally signing a document for implementation
of the CARICOM Single Market (CSM), a move
towards greater regional unity. Though the CSM
is fragile and of questionably clout at the
moment, this makes CARICOM only the second
regional grouping in the world, after the
European Union, to form a single market.
CSM formally began on with six countries on
board including Jamaica, the six Organization of
Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) are yet to sign
but will most likely do so by June 2006.
The process which began with the CSM and its
removal of barriers to trade, goods, services
and several categories of labor will conclude
with the implementation of the CARICOM Single
Market and Economy (CSME) by the end of 2008.
The CSME will involve a single currency and a
uniformed economic policy. The Caribbean Single
Market and Economy CSME involves the free flow
of labor, goods and capital among Caribbean
Community CARICOM member states. The most
debated issue is the implications for
employment. The free movement of labor is
limited to qualified and skilled persons. The
full implication CSM/CSME for the Caribbean
working people, workers rights and unionism is
not being adequately addressed.
The CSME is a business-led, globalization
initiative. Where does Caribbean and Grenada
labor fit into these equations? Will the
Caribbean labor movement be re-organized to take
up these trans-territorial issues? Will we now
see May Day celebrations and initiatives take on
regional manifestations? Will this usher in
trans-territorial labor unions and
trans-territorial trade union activism? Will
labor unions take up the plight of inra-Caribbean
migrant workers?
The answers to these questions will determine
how well the Caribbean labor movement responds
to the demands on Caribbean labor in this era of
capitalist-led globalization.
May Day Solidarity!
©May
1, 2006. Martin P. Felix
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