Eighty-three years ago, the workers of the oilfields launched a powerful struggle in Fyzabad.
The country was in the grips of the Great Depression that affected all countries of the Western world like a pandemic. Workers were losing jobs and facing starvation as businesses collapsed under the weight of the widespread economic crisis.
On June 19, 1937, the situation exploded in the streets of Fyzabad. Leaders of the workers in Port of Spain immediately journeyed there and within days organised strikes in Port of Spain which spread across the sugar areas, the North and to Tobago.
That was the beginning of the anti-colonial struggle with demands for Home Rule along with the economic demands of the workers fighting to defend their livelihood. The call – Let Those Who Labour Hold the Reins – echoed across the land.
The colonisers response was swift and brutal. Within 5 days, 2 British warships, the Ajax and Exeter arrive, 9 workers already killed by police and troops in South Trinidad. In all, 12 workers were killed and 50 wounded during the uprising.
Between October 1937 and February of 1938, several leaders of the anti-colonial battle were before the Courts charged with sedition. The Sedition Act of 1920 (100 years old this year and parts of which were recently struck down by the Court) was invoked and the leaders were accused of ‘causing disaffection among his Majesty’s subjects’. Elma Francois defended herself and was acquitted while the others were jailed.
2020 – Economic Crisis Again
There is a clear and present danger for workers rights in our country.
For some time now, with the onset of the latest episode of the economic crisis spawned by the drastic fall  in hydrocarbon prices since 2014, every effort has been made by the individual businesses, particularly the multinationals and big conglomerates to keep their rates of profit at a maximum. They can only achieve that by increasing the rate of exploitation of the labour power of the workers.
Even the PM, for his own reasons, was forced to recognise recently that the a senior employer representative is “only about himself and what he can suck from the country”.
So, cuts in the labour force or the incomes of the workers, rolling back existing benefits, cutting back or refusing to implement measures to protect the lives, safety and health of workers, union busting by decimating bargaining units through closures, retrenchment as well as discouraging or attacking workers who try to join  unions – All of these have been going on.
In the public sector, Government has not kept all the promises it made in 2015 to fix the labour legislation and the IRA and Retrenchment and Severance Benefits Act, in particular. Because of certain provisions in the IRA, allowing companies to use bankruptcy as a means of avoiding paying severance to workers who are put out of work when business are closed down (like at Arcelor Mittal) workers are put on the breadline with nothing at all.
Government is the largest employer and it has treated its own workforce in the Public Service, daily paid workers and those in various agencies very oppressively. More than 75% of the staff in Ministries are now contract workers and no longer enjoy the special category of permanent and pensionable employment that was recognised in the High Court Case of Reddick several decades ago.
Only last week, the Industrial Court had to order the Education Ministry to pay a female contract worker her full maternity-leave benefits. The Ministry denied her full maternity leave because she was near the end of her contract.
The NCRHA, decided to pay 100% of increment arrears owed over the last 5-6 years only after the health workers mounted a powerful protest. Yesterday, the THA announced that overtime pay owed to Customs Officers for 11 to 12 years will now be paid.
Almost no state enterprise or agency or even private workplace has a current Collective Agreement and some workers last agreement was for periods ending 2012, some even before that.
The economic policies of Government have also affected workers in the oil and gas sectors drastically with loss of jobs due to the closure of Petrotrin, plant closures or idle plants because of gas supply and gas price issues. UTT has been cutting staff.
COVID Cover For Intensified Attacks
Workers’ rights – to collective bargaining, to unionise, to a safe and healthy workplace and to a decent living are all savagely attacked, and this was before COVID came on the scene.
Since COVID, employers have used the disease as an excuse for cutting jobs, wage rates, working hours and generally to step up the exploitative conditions for the workers particularly in the factories and in the service industries including the fast food and other services.
The prospects of the situation improving and unemployment falling soon are not likely.
The negative economic effects of the COVID pandemic are only making the situation of the economy worse.
Government’s finances continue in deficit and the increasing public debt soon to be up to 70% of GDP because of constant borrowing will ensure that the country’s financial health only becomes more critical.
The Road to Recovery proposes no really new direction for the economy. Construction is again being suggested as a means for expanding the economy. But construction jobs are by nature temporary.
So, there are no real prospects for new jobs in the short to medium term.
Recapture the Spirit of 1937
There are signs that the workers are fighting back.
The actions of the health workers this week, the recent actions of workers at EIL and other manufacturing enterprises demanding pay owed to them, demanding protection of their jobs, better working conditions, etc are a positive sign.
Unfortunately, the trade union movement is again divided, split into separate union centres and leaderships which are failing or incapable of providing the kind of inspiring leadership of the leaders of 1937.
The trade unions need to step up their organising efforts to recruit and organise the workers in all industries and to provide representation for ununionized workers when and wherever they are attacked by their employers.   
The workers need to go on the offensive to defend their rights and secure their jobs and benefits, just like the workers of 1937 responded to the attacks on them.
The workers must unite and support each other and fight for their collective interests as the working class just as their predecessors did across the country regardless of industry, region, race, religion and even ideological lines in the powerful challenge to the oppressive colonial authority in 1937.
Today, the millions of people struggling across the United States and the globe against the savage leftovers of the colonial era in the Black Lives Matter movement must inspire the workers just as the fighting workers of 1937 to stand up and fight for their Rights and for the Those Who Labour to Hold the Reins!
Clyde Weatherhead
A Worker and Citizen
Fighting for those who labour
To hold the Reins.
19 June 2020
 
 

On May 25, a 911 call to police emergency alleging a forgery payment described the suspect as “drunk and out of control”.  Within minutes 4 white police officers in 3 marked cars took the black suspect out of his vehicle with no resistance.
Three police officers pinned the handcuffed suspect on the ground, one of them with his knee pressing on his neck till he died. Witnesses kept asking the police officer to get off his neck. (See video - https://youtu.be/iE0M7ECBRno)
That was the end of George Floyd. His death the outcome of a complaint about an alleged $20 forgery.
His killing the outcome of much more – the history of a society built on racist hatred and a mounting compilation of violent police killings of black men and women, most of which have gone unpunished.
All four officers were quickly dismissed. Subsequently, the principal assailant was charged with second-degree murder and the officers face other charges as accomplices.
To add fuel to the fire, the state prosecution officials have suggested that convictions will be ‘difficult’, even suggesting that Floyd had ‘underlying conditions’. There is a rule of law that says a wrongdoer’s liability is not lessened because of the condition of his victim (take your victim as  you find him).
Anyone seeing the video of this cold-blooded killing would have been appalled, at the least. Most were outraged.
So far, for 13 days and nights protests have been sustained all across the United States and have spread to several other countries worldwide demanding an end to systemic racism and targeted police violence against African Americans. The slogan – Black Lives Matter!
The Reactions
The massive, sometimes violent outpouring of discontent unleashed by Floyd’s murder was met with a range of responses by the accused state and system reminiscent of the colonialists’ response to the 1937 uprising in our country. As Susan Craig labelled it – Smiles and Blood.
The protestors were confronted with the police forces dressed in their tactical wear and unleashing non-lethal weapons - tear gas, pepper spray, water cannon, rubber bullets and common assault.
The streets of the ‘greatest Western Democracy’ were hardly distinguishable from any other streets where the forces of the State are unleashed against disaffected populations.
In Washington DC, protestors were even savagely displaced in an unprovoked attack so that the Chief could walk to a church for a photo op, bedecked with bible and all. A new wall has been erected and an array of military forces including prison riot squads from Texas have been brought in to protect the Commander-in-Chief from his people. 
The President threatened deployment of his expanded military to “quickly solve the problem” of “riots and lawlessness” in the name of ‘law and order’.
Various forces have also been unleashed with the objective of derailing the protests either by creating provocations, including looting and burning, to encourage more repressive measures against the protestors.
Other elements were also pressed into action to encourage opposition to the demands for justice. One such was a female commentator who posted a rant (her description) of victim blaming publicly trying Floyd for his ‘criminal’ record.
The revolving door political forces have also been busy making attempts to direct the protests into electoral support and for their own aims which may not necessarily be the same as those of the protesters.
Despite all the efforts to halt their protests, the protestors have vowed to continue until measures are taken to deliver justice according to their demands.
Outside of the US, protests have also been mounted in many countries in solidarity with the US people fighting against racism, racist police violence and for justice.
In Europe, Latin America, Africa and Australia thousands have hit the streets to protest against state violence against aboriginal people, youth and others in their own countries and in support of the US protests.
Here at home some symbolic solidarity protests have been organised outside the US Embassy in Port of Spain.
Black Lives Matter
A counter-slogan campaign aimed at deflecting the objectives of the protest has been pursued headlined All Lives Matter.
While the callous snuffing out of any human life in the manner that George Floyd was murdered and widely seen because of the presence of mind of a 16-year old witness, this incident has sparked the reaction it has because of the accumulated effect of the particular situation that blacks face in the United States.
Black Lives Matter draws attention to the specific problems of racist oppression and police violence which affects this minority segment of the population of that country which has not moved passed its racist roots.
This particular situation and the demands for ending it cannot and must not be diminished.,
While some reforms of police rules including the outlawing of chokehold restraint are already being put in place in some states, there is need for national measures to stamp out police acting with impunity against black youth and communities or at all.
In the final analysis, until the system which has been built on and breeds racism and diminishing the value of human beings because of their ethnicity or national origin is ended, the real underlying condition will not be eliminated.
 
Clyde Weatherhead
A Citizen Fighting for an
Enlightened Humanity which
Values Every Human Being
07 June 2020