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Salvation and the Unity of Labour
Extreme poverty, poor housing, malnutrition, unemployment, and illiteracy. We are talking about Antigua and Barbuda in the 1930s during the Great Depression. It is amidst these nightmarish social and economic conditions that we witnessed the rapid emergence of organized labour - still illegal then - in the Caribbean.
The Depression wreaked havoc on already impoverished working-class Black masses of agricultural workers, on an island where slavery had not been abolished for as many as 100 years, and where the colonial government had little interest in the people's welfare. In this time, the Black masses were landless, repressed, and abjectly poor. Their rural homes were made of woven sticks plastered with mud and roofed with cane trash - wattle and daub. They lived with pests and insects. Their measly wages had decreased. Their families were hungry.
Similar conditions across the Caribbean unleashed a wave of popular protests and riots. Antigua was no exception. But by 1939, the Antigua Trades & Labour Union (AT&LU) was formed and other organisations would later follow. Decades later, the labour movement had proven pivotal in getting better pay and better conditions, and in organizing the first popular political parties.
And labour organizations were influential in shaping the nationalism and working-class politics of the era - an era which later saw the granting of the right of all adults to vote (1951), self-rule (1967), and independence (1981). In this episode we talk about the significance of that movement to the development of Antigua and Barbuda ahead of the observation of Labour Day 2021.
The host is Kieron Murdoch. The guests are:
This programme first aired on NewsCo Observer Radio 91.1 FM on May 2nd, 2021. Get the latest news from Antigua and Barbuda at the Antigua Observer online.
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By The Big Issues Production TeamExtreme poverty, poor housing, malnutrition, unemployment, and illiteracy. We are talking about Antigua and Barbuda in the 1930s during the Great Depression. It is amidst these nightmarish social and economic conditions that we witnessed the rapid emergence of organized labour - still illegal then - in the Caribbean.
The Depression wreaked havoc on already impoverished working-class Black masses of agricultural workers, on an island where slavery had not been abolished for as many as 100 years, and where the colonial government had little interest in the people's welfare. In this time, the Black masses were landless, repressed, and abjectly poor. Their rural homes were made of woven sticks plastered with mud and roofed with cane trash - wattle and daub. They lived with pests and insects. Their measly wages had decreased. Their families were hungry.
Similar conditions across the Caribbean unleashed a wave of popular protests and riots. Antigua was no exception. But by 1939, the Antigua Trades & Labour Union (AT&LU) was formed and other organisations would later follow. Decades later, the labour movement had proven pivotal in getting better pay and better conditions, and in organizing the first popular political parties.
And labour organizations were influential in shaping the nationalism and working-class politics of the era - an era which later saw the granting of the right of all adults to vote (1951), self-rule (1967), and independence (1981). In this episode we talk about the significance of that movement to the development of Antigua and Barbuda ahead of the observation of Labour Day 2021.
The host is Kieron Murdoch. The guests are:
This programme first aired on NewsCo Observer Radio 91.1 FM on May 2nd, 2021. Get the latest news from Antigua and Barbuda at the Antigua Observer online.