June 19 2020: 83 Years of the Anti-colonial Struggle

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
 
 

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