Nass­er Khan

To­day marks the 38th year since June 19, 1973 was de­clared "Labour Day", June 19 be­ing the an­niver­sary of the day of the "But­ler Oil­field Ri­ots" which took place in 1937. That sig­nif­i­cant date in the his­to­ry of Trinidad and To­ba­go was the cul­mi­na­tion of years of ten­sion be­tween work­ers and em­ploy­ers in var­i­ous sec­tors of so­ci­ety high­light­ed by in­stances of work­er abuse, un­der­pay­ment for labour, racism, eco­nom­ic de­pres­sion and falling liv­ing stan­dards of the work­ing class. Three of the more promi­nent pi­o­neer­ing labour lead­ers/trade union­ists, aris­ing out of the strug­gles of work­ers first­ly in Port-of-Spain, then on the sug­ar plan­ta­tions of cen­tral and the south­ern oil fields, were An­drew Arthur Cipri­ani, Adri­an Co­la Rien­zi, and Tubal Uri­ah "Buzz" But­ler re­spec­tive­ly. These men are cred­it­ed with bring­ing about the ear­ly rum­blings that put Trinidad and To­ba­go on the road to in­de­pen­dence. Be­tween the three of them they set the plat­form for work­ers in all sec­tors (non-oil/sug­ar, oil and sug­ar) to chal­lenge those in au­thor­i­ty for the bet­ter­ment of all..

ARTHUR AN­DREW CIPRI­ANI (1875-1945)

A sol­dier at first, lat­er achiev­ing the rank of Cap­tain in the British West In­dia Reg­i­ment in World War I, he be­came a leader not just to the ex-sol­diers but to labour­ers al­so, be­com­ing well known through­out Trinidad and To­ba­go as the cham­pi­on of 'the bare­foot­ed man'. In No­vem­ber 1919, dur­ing a labour dis­pute on the Port-of-Spain wharves, Cipri­ani called on the work­ers to strike, re­sult­ing in their first im­por­tant in­dus­tri­al strike in Trinidad. In 1921 with his pop­u­lar­i­ty in­creas­ing he was elect­ed to a seat on the City Coun­cil of Port-of-Spain. In 1923, he was elect­ed pres­i­dent of the Trinidad Work­ing­men's As­so­ci­a­tion, at that time the coun­try's lead­ing work­ers' or­gan­i­sa­tion and in 1925 be­came May­or of Port-of-Spain, which pro­pelled him to a seat on the Leg­isla­tive Coun­cil in Trinidad's first gen­er­al elec­tions. On the Leg­isla­tive Coun­cil he cham­pi­oned key is­sues such as "old age" pen­sion, women's rights, a min­i­mum wage, com­pul­so­ry ed­u­ca­tion, an end to plan­ta­tion child labour and the end of the Crown Colony Sys­tem.

In 1934, he formed the Trinidad Labour Par­ty, which was re­al­ly the Trinidad Work­ing­men's As­so­ci­a­tion un­der a new ti­tle to give it its po­lit­i­cal thrust. Dur­ing his tenure he had the likes of Uri­ah But­ler and Adri­an Co­la Rien­zi as close com­rades both of whom left the ranks in 1936 to form their own par­ties when at­ten­tion be­gan to turn to the plight of the oil­fields work­ers and the fam­i­lies of sug­ar cane work­ers, the lat­ter group Cipri­ani al­so cred­it­ed as be­ing an ad­vo­cate for be­fore Rien­zi took up the man­tle. Cipri­ani, a so­lic­i­tor, re­tired from pub­lic life in 1944, hav­ing nev­er lost his seat on the City Coun­cil since he had first been elect­ed in 1921 along with his record eight terms as May­or. A stat­ue to his mem­o­ry was erect­ed in Port-of-Spain at the base of Fred­er­ick Street un­veiled on April 17, 1959, by Chief Min­is­ter Dr Er­ic Williams: "Cap­tain Cipri­ani is the pi­o­neer of the na­tion­al­ist move­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go. With the un­veil­ing of this stat­ue we com­mem­o­rate our own his­tor­i­cal de­vel­op­ment, our own pos­i­tive ac­tion, our own na­tive his­to­ry made by na­tive hands, and the as­pi­ra­tion of our na­tive peo­ples." Cipri­ani Boule­vard in Port-of-Spain and Cipri­ani Col­lege of Labour and Co­op­er­a­tive Stud­ies are al­so named in his ho­n­our.

Adri­an Co­la Rien­zi (1905-1972)

Born Kr­ish­na De­onar­ine, a high school drop-out due to fam­i­ly cir­cum­stances, he be­came an avid read­er learn­ing about Co­la di Rien­zo, a four­teenth cen­tu­ry Ital­ian ac­tivist and pa­tri­ot who or­gan­ised and fought great bat­tles on be­half of work­ers. In 1927, De­onar­ine changed his name to Adri­an Co­la Rien­zi, af­ter a British mag­is­trate, Adri­an Clarke and Co­la di Rien­zo and even­tu­al­ly be­came a lawyer in spite of his ear­ly ed­u­ca­tion­al set­backs. A close com­rade of Cipri­ani in the fight for the bet­ter­ment of the work­ing class with the pas­sion to make Trinidad a bet­ter place, he part­ed ways with Cipri­ani's par­ty/union in 1936 to cham­pi­on work­ers in the sug­ar cane in­dus­try in cen­tral Trinidad. The same year as But­ler did sim­i­lar­ly to cham­pi­on the plight of work­ers in the oil in­dus­try that was, like the sug­ar cane in­dus­try, based out­side of Port-of-Spain, in the 'oil belt' in south Trinidad. Rien­zi was the first pres­i­dent of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Trades Union Coun­cil , from its foun­da­tion in 1938 un­til 1944. He had ear­li­er been in­stru­men­tal in the for­ma­tion of the Trinidad Cit­i­zens' League (1934), a par­ty close­ly aligned to the sug­ar in­dus­try.

In No­vem­ber 1937 the All Trinidad Sug­ar Es­tate and Fac­to­ry Work­ers Trade Union (AT­SE­FW­TU) was reg­is­tered, with Rien­zi now pres­i­dent of both the Oil­field Work­ers Trade Union (OW­TU) and AT­SE­FWT, both of which he found­ed. In 1939 the Trade Union Con­gress (TUC) was es­tab­lished and Rien­zi elect­ed its first pres­i­dent. He al­so rep­re­sent­ed 'labour' at the Forster and Moynes com­mis­sions.

As a lawyer he in­ten­si­fied his per­son­al op­po­si­tion against all at­tempts of ex­ploita­tion of work­ers. In ad­di­tion to push­ing for work­ers rights, Rien­zi al­so fought for the rights of In­do-Trinida­di­ans help­ing to se­cure more em­ploy­ment in the pub­lic ser­vice as well as the right to cre­mate, the recog­ni­tion of Hin­du and Mus­lim mar­riages and the set­ting up of schools by non-Chris­t­ian re­li­gious de­nom­i­na­tions. In ad­di­tion to be­ing a Mem­ber of the Leg­isla­tive Coun­cil from 1937-1944, he was al­so the May­or of San Fer­nan­do from 1939 to 1942 and served four terms on the San Fer­nan­do Bor­ough Coun­cil. He was a mem­ber of the fran­chise com­mit­tee ap­point­ed in 1941, and strong­ly ad­vo­cat­ed uni­ver­sal adult suf­frage. He stout­ly de­fend­ed Uri­ah But­ler's ag­i­ta­tion in the oil belt in June 1937 and did his best to de­fend his com­rade be­com­ing his le­gal coun­sel in the charges that were brought against him. Dur­ing the two year pe­ri­od that But­ler was jailed and sub­se­quent de­ten­tion on war se­cu­ri­ty grounds, Rien­zi made all ef­forts to keep the But­ler's sup­port­ers to­geth­er and his im­age alive so that up­on his re­lease in 1945, he was warm­ly wel­comed back. Adri­an Co­la Rien­zi's long stint in the Leg­isla­tive Coun­cil saw him work­ing tire­less­ly for the end of the Crown Colony Sys­tem and the com­ing in of Adult Fran­chise. A promi­nent build­ing in the heart of what once was the 'sug­ar belt in Cou­va, cen­tral Trinidad, is named the Rien­zi Com­plex in his ho­n­our.

Tubal Uri­ah "Buzz" But­ler (1897-1977)

Grena­di­an-born who grav­i­tat­ed to his hero Cap­tain Cipri­ani from World War I and to the flour­ish­ing T&T oil in­dus­try in 1921 when he moved to Trinidad. In 1929, he was in­jured in an in­dus­tri­al ac­ci­dent at his job as a rig man/pipe fit­ter that left him with a per­ma­nent limp and no com­pen­sa­tion. Be­com­ing a preach­er, known for his fiery style, that some­times rubbed peo­ple the wrong way, he be­gan to cham­pi­on in earnest those in predica­ments like him, work­ers with griev­ances and ad­verse work­ing con­di­tions.

He whole­heart­ed­ly em­braced the labour move­ment and its cause, join­ing Cipri­ani's Trinidad Labour Par­ty but leav­ing it and his men­tor in 1936 to fight more ag­gres­sive­ly for his be­liefs and work­ers' rights. In 1935, he led a 'hunger' march from the oil belt of Fyz­abad, Siparia and Point Fortin to Port-of-Spain, to high­light the work­ers' de­mands. In 1936, he formed his own par­ty, the British Em­pire Work­ers and Cit­i­zen Home Rule Par­ty (BEW&CHRP) and in 1937 or­gan­ised a sit down strike that proved to be a cat­a­lyst in the de­vel­op­ment of the labour move­ment. The demon­stra­tion was a peace­ful one un­til the po­lice tried to ar­rest But­ler, spark­ing off a ri­ot lead­ing to car­nage, in­clud­ing the death of po­lice­man Char­lie King af­ter whom the junc­tion is named in Fyz­abad.

He was tried, con­vict­ed of sedi­tion and sen­tenced to two years in prison fierce­ly de­fend­ed by his com­rade, lawyer and fel­low labour leader Adri­an Co­la Rien­zi. In 1939 he was made chief or­gan­is­er of the OW­TU but was soon ex­pelled for his fiery and ag­gres­sive na­ture and stances. Af­ter en­gi­neer­ing an­oth­er strike in 1941, But­ler was again im­pris­oned from 1941-1945, since the gov­ern­ment re­gard­ed his dis­rup­tion of oil pro­duc­tion as a threat to the War ef­fort. In 1945 the same year, as the death of his for­mer men­tor and leader Cap­tain An­drew Cipri­ani, he was re­leased and hailed as a hero of the work­ing class. In 1946/7, he called a gen­er­al strike, with some of his sup­port­ers storm­ing the Red House. Even in his for­ay in­to the po­lit­i­cal are­na via his po­lit­i­cal par­ties, cul­mi­nat­ing in The But­ler Par­ty, his fo­cus and plat­form was al­ways for the im­prove­ment of the work­ing class. He served on the Leg­isla­tive Coun­cil from 1950-1961 and ran un­suc­cess­ful­ly for the Elec­tions in 1958 and in 1961. In 1969 he was of­fi­cial­ly brought back in­to the fold of the OW­TU, made a life mem­ber and award­ed the ho­n­our, The Labour Star.

In 1970, he was ho­n­oured with the Trin­i­ty Cross, T&T's high­est ho­n­our. By the time T&T gained in­de­pen­dence in 1962, But­ler's con­tri­bu­tion as a labour leader and his rep­u­ta­tion as a fight­er for and a hero of the work­ing class was be­ing wide­ly recog­nised. He was re­gard­ed as a hero of the peo­ple, and in fact, he was seen as one of the first men, if not the first, who land­ed the first dis­man­tling blow against colo­nial­ism, giv­ing courage to the fight­ers for in­de­pen­dence. In 1970 he was dec­o­rat­ed with the coun­try's high­est award, the Trin­i­ty Cross. The great­est trib­ute how­ev­er came in 1973, when the an­niver­sary of the oil­field ri­ots, June 19, was de­clared an an­nu­al Na­tion­al hol­i­day and cel­e­brat­ed as Labour Day. Al­so the for­mer Princess Mar­garet High­way was re­named in his ho­n­our. In 1971, a life size stat­ue was erect­ed in Fyz­abad in his ho­n­our.

NOTE: Ear­li­er this year in April, El­bert Red­vers Blades, the first gen­er­al sec­re­tary of the Oil­fields Work­ers' Trade Union (OW­TU) cel­e­brat­ed his 109th birth­day. He is one of those cred­it­ed for help­ing save the strug­gle from col­lapse in 1937 when Tubal Uri­ah "Buzz" But­ler went in­to hid­ing to avoid ar­rest. Blades, a res­i­dent of Cu­mu­to, Waller­field, con­tributed sig­nif­i­cant­ly to the ben­e­fits now en­joyed by work­ers. He has fond mem­o­ries of ad­vo­cat­ing along­side But­ler, Cipri­ani and Rien­zi and was award­ed the Hum­ming Bird Sil­ver Medal in 1998 for his con­tri­bu­tion to the trade union move­ment in Trinidad and To­ba­go. (Com­piled main­ly from var­i­ous Nalis re­sources)