The former Secretary General of the Communication Workers' Union (CWU) died of kidney failure at the Port of Spain General Hospital while undergoing dialysis.
CWU President Joseph Remy broke the news to his union Friday afternoon.
"We express deepest condolences, we throw the support of the CWU behind the family in any way they would want and we give them the commitment that the CWU will ensure that the name, the work and the legacy of comrade Lyle Townsend will continue forever and ever," Remy said.
Townsend was one of the longest-serving members of the CWU. He retired in 2007 after serving the union for a quarter century.
Townsend started working at the telephone company (Telco) in 1978 and spent most of his adult life representing junior and senior staff there.
Vincent Cabrera, president of the Banking, Insurance and General Workers Union (BIGWU) remembered Townsend as a fighter for workers and the CWU. “I think he led the CWU at a time when it had been taken out of a leadership that was not as progressive as needed, and brought a progressive genre of trade-union leadership to the CWU,” Cabrera told reporters.
Other trade unions and labour leaders also paid tribute to Townsend.
The telephone company, TSTT, expressed condolences to Townsend’s family and friends in a media release Friday. TSTT acknowledged Townsends commitment to workers in the industry. It said Townsend “became a central figure in the industrial relations landscape at TSTT.”
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