Workers Must Take Back Their Unions
By Gerry Kangalee
Beginning in the 1960s, led by the trade union movement, there was a movement to own and control some aspects of the economy of the country. We saw the nationalisation of the telephone company arising out of a bitter strike by members of the Communication Workers Union (CWU) which lasted for one hundred and twenty-three days; the nationalisation of bus services and the formation of PTSC after a strike by members of Transport and Industrial Workers Union which lasted fifty-seven days and which involved a petition campaign for nationalisation.
The Transport and Industrial Workers Union (TIWU) held numerous public meetings and mass demonstrations all over the country explaining the reasons for the strike and its demands; and why Government should nationalise the Company. The Union was also able to obtain the support of the commuters and on June 22nd, 1964, submitted a petition to the Acting Minister of Public Utilities supported by fourteen thousand persons demanding that the Company be nationalised. Of course there were the tremendous struggles by the OWTU in the sixties and seventies to defend the jobs of oil workers in BP, Shell and Texaco and the subsequent pressure brought on the government to nationalise the assets of these companies.
This, of course, was bolstered by the revolutionary ferment of the sixties and seventies which saw a tremendous struggle to gain true independence; which saw the declaration of states of emergency and the jailing of revolutionaries and trade unionists; the enactment of the Industrial Relations Act which sought to fetter the activities of trade unions. There was the short lived blossoming of armed struggle against the state and the tremendous rallies of workers in 1975 and the disastrous foray into electoral politics.
But the constant pressure from below and the oil boom of the seventies saw the setting up of a slew of state owned companies and the development of the Point Lisas Industrial estate and the establishment of ISCOTT, which was to be the flagship of industrial development until it came under pressure from the established international steel giants and the US trade department and which led to its privatisation.
When the boom turned into the inevitable bust of the early 1980s, the trade union movement waged a decade long struggle to maintain the gains it had made in the previous period. There were tremendous strike struggles throughout the 1980’s. There were occupations. There were arrests and jailing of trade union members. There were pitched battles with scabs. There were flying pickets and police repression and there was the general strike of 1989 which saw a complete shutdown of the country on March 6th — the Day of Resistance. In the aftermath of our entry into an IMF standby programme in the late eighties, there was a tsunami of privatisation accompanied by mass retrenchment and the weakening of the trade union movement and an almost thirty year retreat of organised labour. The government cut public expenditure as one important aspect of expenditure was to repay their debts to the external lending agencies from whom they took loans. Interest payments on the external loans moved from 3.2% in 1983 to 20.9% in 1992. One major way of cutting expenditure was to reduce salary and wages. There was a salary cut of 10% and COLA was removed. Public health care expenditure fell 17% in 1982 to 8% in 1992. Similar cuts were felt in Education, public transport and public infrastructure. Many public service workers couldn’t continue with their mortgage payments. Banks foreclosed on their properties and many migrated which exacerbated the barrel children phenomenon. The private sector followed suit. They also removed COLA and engaged in retrenchment. The major conditions focused on curbing government expenditure, monetary and exchange rate policy, and on price and import control
The dollar was devalued and food prices increased by 50%, salaries were already cut and the cost of imports increased. 15% VAT was imposed on most items.
Corporation tax was reduced from 50% tax to 30%. Price control was removed as were agricultural subsidies. By 1990, unemployment rose to 22%. By December 1989, 49% shares were sold to Cable and Wireless. Services provided by the state were outsourced to the Private Sector e.g. Prison Transport went to Amalgamated.
Many unionised and non-unionised private companies were closed down under receiverships. By 1993, 1,694 businesses went out of operation. Between 1986–1990 0ver 10,000 cases of retrenchment were reported to the Ministry of Labour. Many of these workers were never paid their Severance. By 1991, over 25% of the population was living below the poverty line according to a UWI study. According to NATUC (National Trade Union Centre) figures, trade union membership fell from 118,750 in 1980 to 66,257 in 1998 which is a 44% cut. Trade union percentage of the workforce has been declining ever since. The economic crisis we are experiencing today has its fore-runner in that of the 1980s. But today the situation threatens to be more catastrophic. We are in a new stage of barbarism, with the working people under more pressure than ever before.
We have become a narco-state based on massive corruption of politicians and public officials a repressive police force, ghastly criminality, a country littered with guns in the hands of dispossessed youths, tens of thousands without hope of employment, rampant exploitation of labour, and if the ruling elites have their way, the Covid restrictions may very well become the new/old normal.
In the 1980s the trade union movement engaged in a decade long struggle to defend the interests of working people and the poor. Today, the movement has lost credibility in the eyes of working people, including their membership which is shrinking at an alarming rate. The trade union movement is the weakest it has been since the nineteen thirties.
Working people and the poor cannot stand aside and look. To do so is to co-operate in our own destruction. The workers in the public utilities, WASA, TTEC, TSTT, PTSC, LAKE ASPHALT, NATIONAL PETROLEUM, TTPOST, MUNICIPAL CORPORATIONS must take up their responsibility to defend their jobs and their children’s future.
My comrade, Rae Samuel, has for years been calling for building a united front of workers in action; not of federations, not of maximum leaders, nor of election agendas. I think we should take a serious look at establishing mechanisms to make his call a reality.
One suggestion is that the shop stewards, branch officers and activists of the various unions should take the initiative and not wait on their leaders, (many of whom don’t seem to have a clue and who seem more concerned about their personal interest than that of the members of their unions), and organise cross-union discussions or COSSABOs, if you will, to strategise and develop a fight back program. After all, as the late great George Weekes used to say, workers have brains dey ent touch yet!
The economic and political elites, the one percent, are using this crisis to advance their interests. We must ensure that we do not retreat in the face of these initial attacks. If we do not defend our turf now, we will be condemned to fight a long, rear-guard action where we won’t have the initiative and where we will always be on the back foot.
Let us show these hustlers, these confidence tricksters, these servants of the imperialists, these gatekeepers for the one percent that the people ent taking dat so! For unionised workers the first step is to take control of their unions and transform them into democratic, militant participatory organisations; take them out of the hands of political parties, conglomerate employers and leaders who are more concerned with their personal aggrandisement than with defending, protecting and advancing the interests of the working class in this era of capitalist collapse.
