The workers’ benefits that labour leaders like Tubal Uriah Buzz Butler fought for in 1937 are not appreciated by today’s working class people, Oilfields Workers’ Trade Union (OWTU) president general Ancel Roget said yesterday
At a wreath laying ceremony at Butler’s grave site in Fyzabad yesterday during Labour Day celebrations, Roget criticised workers for their indifference to the struggles of activists like Butler.
“One of the sad things that we continue to experience today is that most of these benefits, indeed all of these benefits that were gained through these relentless struggles, have been taken for granted by workers,” Roget said. “And certainly they have very little or no appreciation for the history of why and how these benefits came about.”
“Indeed for us to actually keep these benefits we’ve got to keep these fires of struggle burning.”
Roget said although many years have passed since trade unions first came about in T&T in 1937, the struggles of the working class remain the same.
“Very often we cannot find our way and we cannot find answers to the problems we are experiencing because we are not connecting it to the deep rooted and relentless struggles of the past,” he said.
“When one examines what occurred in the 1930’s and 1940’s, one would recognise one common thing is that we had to struggle then and we continue to struggle now. The guards would have changed but the struggle continues.”
Public relations officer of the Joint Trade Union Movement, Vincent Cabrera, took the opportunity to call on T&T Unified Teachers Association (TTUTA) president Devanand Sinanan to try to include labour day history in the school curriculum.
“I want to speak on behalf of the Joint Trade Union Movement (JTUM) to admonish those who know what they have to do and are not doing it—that is who I want to admonish,” Cabrera said.
“How many schools do anything to teach about our labour history and more so, doing anything about teaching about Tubal Uriah Buzz Butler. How many schools?
“And it is past tragic but it is a sign that our authorities want our children to grow up in ignorance!” he said.