Labour Day is celebrated worldwide on May 1, but Trinidad and Tobago changed the observance to coincide with one of the most important dates in the development of the national labour movement.
On June 19, 1937 an attempt by police to arrest the populist labour leader Tubal Uriah "Buzz" Butler led to the murder of a policeman and the start of what was to become the Butler Riots.
The policeman, Charlie King, was shot dead and his body burned in Fyzabad in what is known today as Charlie King Junction, which is home of the Oilfield Workers Trade Union's office in Fyzabad.
Butler's contribution as a labour leader, and his reputation as a fighter for the masses made him a national hero. In 1970 Butler was honoured with the nation's highest award, the Trinity Cross.
Three years later the government declared June 19 an annual national holiday to be celebrated as Labour Day. And following his death the Princess Margaret Highway was renamed the Uriah Butler Highway in his honour.
Butler died on February 20, 1977 after a prolonged illness. On his deathbed, he agreed to talk to me about his life and struggle in a television interview.
I had never met "Buzz" though I had done reports on him in my work as a reporter covering the labour beat. So I was honoured and humbled to learn that this national icon wanted to talk with me and no other broadcast journalist.
When I arrived at his home with my colleague, the late Horace James, Butler was on bed but was excited that I had come. He warmly greeted me, "Ah Jai, ah so glad you come."
I leaned over and hugged the legendary labour leader and we chatted while my camera crew set up the equipment for the interview. I was deeply impressed with his spirit and conviction.
"Do you know what is a shit gang?" he asked me while the camera was rolling. I didn't.
"Aha, my boy, well that is where I used to wuk, in the shit gang in the oilfield." He explained that his passion for fighting for workers' rights grew out of his own humiliation in working under dehumanizing, near-slavery conditions to enrich the foreign oil companies.
"At the end of the day, you feel like shit and you smell like shit. And for pennies. That was what it was like for me and dem other men who slaved for the master," he said.
He spoke passionately about the exploitation of workers, lamented the Williams PNM government's failure to stand up for labour and hoped that leaders like George Weekes (late President General of the OWTU) and Basdeo Panday would carry the torch when he was gone.
At the end of the interview I asked him what would be his greatest wish for the labour movement and for workers. He paused, thought for a moment and then declared, "For labour to unite!"
"But would it happen?" I asked him. He seemed unsure for a moment. Then he spoke after a long pause. "They must," he told me in a reflective tone, "They must, there is no other way."
I was at his funeral, which was attended by more than 20,000 people, and wrote his obituary, praising Butler as a man who was so powerful "it seemed not even death could diminish the love the nation felt for him."
He's been gone a long time – 34 years. And Butler's dream remains unfulfilled. The labour movement in Trinidad and Tobago is still divided, stratified by ideology and political allegiances.
Perhaps as the Trinidad and Tobago's labour movement gathers to celebrate Labour Day trade union leaders could resolve to put differences aside and stand together in genuine unity.
If they do, it would be the greatest tribute they could pay to the "Chief Servant."
Read more about Butler
Jai Parasram
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