Labour Day in Trinidad & Tobago Labour Day celebrations in Trinidad and Tobago was declared an annual national holiday in 1973. Celebrated on June 19th, it is the anniversary of the day of the Butler Oilfield Riots which took place in 1937. Here is a brief history on Uriah Buzz Butler- The voice and heart of labour. Tubal Uriah “Buzz” Butler was born in 1897 in Grenada where he received his primary education. During the First World War, he served in the British West Indian Regiment, under Captain Arthur Cipriani. He returned to Grenada after the war, but moved to Trinidad in 1921 , attracted by the flourishing oil industry with its plentiful jobs and relatively high wages. In 1929, he was injured in an industrial accident that left him permanently lame. Butler himself, a member of the working class, embraced the labour movement and its cause wholeheartedly, joining Cipriani’s Trinidad Labour Party. Butler first came to prominence in 1935 when he led a hunger march from the oilfields to Port of Spain. In 1936 he was expelled from the Trinidad Labour Party for his extremist tendencies. He then formed the British Empire Citizens and Workers Home Rule Party. On June 19, 1937 a strike in protest of working conditions, wages, racism and exploitation began in the oilfields in southern Trinidad. Police attempted to arrest Butler as he addressed a meeting in Fyzabad. His supporters prevented the police from doing so and police corporal Charles King (Charlie King) was burnt to death and English police officer, William Bradburn, was shot and killed. Butler was acquitted on a charge of sedition but jailed for 2 years hard labour on a charge of incitement to riot. After engineering another strike in 1941, Butler was again imprisoned from 1941-1945, since the government regarded his disruption of oil production as a threat to the British War effort. In 1946, he called a general strike, and his supporters stormed the Red House. He was eventually expelled from the Oilfield Workers Trade Union (OWTU), a trade union organized in his absence by his second in command, Adrian Cola Rienzi. Butler served on the Legislative Council from 1950-1961; he ran unsuccessfully for the Federal Elections in 1958 and again for the General Election in 1961. In 1973, the Government decreed the date of the Butler Riots, June 19, as Labour Day. Butler is looked upon as the founding father of the Oilfields Workers Trade Union (OWTU) and the labour movement and is honoured with a statue in Fyzabad. At the national awards ceremony in 1976, Uriah Butler was given the highest award of Trinidad and Tobago, the Trinity Cross.
Posted on: Thu, 19 Jun 2014 14:00:00 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015