Kali­fa Clyne

In his youth, Michael Als led a march from south Trinidad to White­hall, Port-of-Spain, where he scaled a flag­pole and hung the flag of the Youth Pow­er Move­ment.He was a union­ist, a com­mu­ni­ty leader, an au­thor and a so­cial ac­tivist and he had one bias that every­one at his fu­ner­al yes­ter­day seemed to agree on: He was bi­ased to­wards any­thing that pro­pelled the de­vel­op­ment of the work­ing class.

Als' broth­er, Mario, while de­liv­er­ing the eu­lo­gy at his fu­ner­al yes­ter­day, de­scribed him as some­one who got the job done.He was re­mem­bered as the founder of the Bank­ing, In­sur­ance and Gen­er­al Work­ers Union (BIG­WU), the fa­ther of four, a com­mu­ni­ty ac­tivist in To­co and a man who felt it was his re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to have an ef­fect on the lives of the peo­ple around him.

Cur­rent BIG­WU pres­i­dent Vin­cent Cabr­era said Als was re­spon­si­ble for es­tab­lish­ing em­ploy­ment pro­tec­tion for fi­nance work­ers in T&T."The work­ers in the fi­nance sec­tor, me­dia sec­tor and in­deed the en­tire ser­vices sec­tor owe an im­mense debt to Michael Als."Near­ly every­one ad­vised that Michael was crazy to leave his good teach­ing job to or­gan­ise black work­ers," said Cabr­era, adding these peo­ple were proven wrong.

"Michael was a nat­ur­al or­gan­is­er and an ex­pert mo­bilis­er who de­mand­ed from all his as­so­ciates great dis­ci­pline and com­mit­ment in do­ing the peo­ple's work," he said.Als died last week at 67.His fu­ner­al, which took place at the Cumana RC Church, To­co, was a well- at­tend­ed event, with mourn­ers brav­ing rain and flood wa­ters to pay their fi­nal re­spects.

They in­clud­ed Pres­i­dent An­tho­ny Car­mona, House Speak­er Wade Mark, him­self a for­mer BIG­WU ex­ec­u­tive, Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Win­ston "Gyp­sy" Pe­ters and many of the peo­ple Als in­ter­act­ed with through his union ac­tiv­i­ty and his in­volve­ment in the To­co Foun­da­tion.He was de­scribed as a fight­er for so­cial jus­tice, a sto­ry­teller and a man who was pas­sion­ate for his com­mu­ni­ty.

Wendy Di­az, a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the To­co Foun­da­tion, which Als found­ed, said he was a man who al­ways cham­pi­oned a cause and who as­sist­ed civ­il-so­ci­ety or­gan­i­sa­tions, es­pe­cial­ly those pro­mot­ing women.She said Als would be missed not just by his com­mu­ni­ty but by the na­tion, as his life af­fect­ed stu­dents, farm­ers, par­ents and care­givers and af­fect­ed pos­i­tive change in the lives of many.He was buried at the Cumana ceme­tery.