User:Guettarda/TLP
The Trinidad Workingmen's Association was a labour organisation in Trinidad and Tobago. Formed in 1894 the group lapsed into inactivity before it was reorganised in 1906 by pharmacist Alfred Richards. The group split in rival groups in 1914 before going dormant for the duration of the First World War. After the war it was reorganised under the leadership of Captain A. A. Cipriani who was elected leader in 1923. Active in local labour organising and represented in the Legislative Council of Trinidad and Tobago from 1925, the association reformed as a political party, Trinidad Labour Party, in 1934.
Origins
The Workingmen's Association was founded in 1894.[fn 1] In 1896 the association's president was J. Sydney de Bourg, a former school teacher and later commission agent and owner of a small cocoa estate. The secretary, Montgomery Corbie, worked as a petition writer in the courts.[1]: 12–13
The TWA gave testimony to the West India Royal Commission of 1897[2]: 8–12 which was convened to look into the "widespread economic malaise" in the British West Indies.[3] Led Walter Mills, a pharmacist, the association claimed a membership of 50 "carpenters, masons, labourers, tailors, and other trades"[2]: 8–12 who were mainly Trinidadians, but included migrants from other islands.[1]: 14
The TWA functions as a cross between a trade union and a political reform group. It advocated for reduced taxation, improved housing, living conditions, transport, and an end to Indian immigration.[2]: 8–12 The leadership of the association saw Indians immigrants as competing with their Black working class membership for jobs, and the importation of indentured labour as a means of depressing wages in the colony.[1]: 14
In 1906 the largely inactive TWA was revived under the leadership of Alfred Richards. Under Richards' leadership, the TWA developed into more of a trade union. In addition to advocating for workers' rights, it pushed for the reestablishment of the Port of Spain Borough Council[2]: 8–12 an elected body which had been abolished in 1898 and replaced by Town Commissioners appointed directly by the governor.[1]: 15–16
Notes
- ^ The date of the associations founding is often given as 1897, but Jerome Teelucksingh showed that the group held meetings as early as 1896, and gave 1894 as the date they were formed based on a newspaper report from 1906 about a meeting which included a retrospective on the association's activities over the 12 years since its foundation.
References
- ^ a b c d Teelucksingh, Jerome (2015). Labour and the Decolonization Struggle in Trinidad and Tobago. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 9781137462329.
- ^ a b c d Basdeo, Sahadeo (1983). Labour organisation and labour reform in Trinidad, 1919-1939. St. Augustine, Trinidad : Institute of Social and Economic Research, University of the West Indies.
- ^ Richardson, Bonham C. (2007). "The Importance of the 1897 British Royal Commission". In Besson, Jean; Momsen, Janet Henshall (eds.). Caribbean land and development revisited (1st ed.). New York, N.Y.: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 17–28. ISBN 978-0-230-60504-6. OCLC 567827688.