LABOUR DAY GREETING 2016

June 19: 78 Anniversary of the Butler Riots
Greetings to the Workers and People of Trinidad and Tobago!

Today, we commemorate the 78th Anniversary of the anti-colonial uprising, led by the workers of this country and which began with what has become popularly known as the Butler Riots.

Nowadays, June 19 is labelled Labour Day and promoted even by trade union leaders as the birth of the modern trade union movement in this country. In this way, the significance of the events which began on June 19 and spread across Trinidad and Tobago and further up the islands of the Caribbean is being narrowed to the granting of legal status to trade unions in this country.

While in form, the struggle of that time appeared to be an economic one for improved wages and conditions of work, it was in content, a lot more.

The workers, who engaged in those battles at the cost of more than 20 of their number killed across our country, unfurled the banner – Let Those Who Labour Hold the Reins! The Butler Riots thus became a declaration of intent by the workers of this country to constitute themselves as the nation and exercise sovereignty to build the society in the interest of the majority.

The issue of Who is to Hold Power was put on the agenda.

The character of that struggle was thus:
·         Anti-colonial and for independence for Trinbago
·         For  Working Class Power
·        Democratic in demanding that the majority Hold the Reins of Power and for the recognition of the economic,          political, trade union and other rights of the workers and poor in our society.

The Anti-colonial uprising of 1937 forced the legalising of trade unions and the growth of the trade union movement.

It also laid the foundation for the introduction of full adult franchise in 1946.

It launched the independence movement in T&T and the Caribbean.

To reduce its significance solely to the birth of modern trade unionism in this country is to rob it of its much wider and more powerful significance for the fight for independence and democracy in our society.

To narrow its significance is play down the sacrifices of the martyrs and fighters of 1937.

It is also to rob those who continue the fight for the aims of 1937 of the mobilising effect of the understanding of the connection between that foundation and the current battles for democratic renewal – good governance, power of the electors over the elected, the right of recall of elected representatives, for a free and equal union between Tobago and Trinidad.

Greetings to those who are continuing the fight begun by Butler and the workers of 1937.
​