Today’s trade unions, founded on the backs of early freedom fighters, are weak, says Pan Africanist David Denny.
He made the observation on Saturday, the Day Of National Significance in remembrance of the 1937 rebellions and during the Israel Lovell Foundation’s annual visit to the grave of its founder at St George’s Parish Church. Denny said trade unions did not appear to be representing the interest of workers.
The general secretary of the Caribbean Movement for Peace and Integration said the day, July 26, and the role that Lovell played in the struggle were “very important” to Garveyites. The movement also recognised July 26 as a day of significance in relation to the 1953 rebellion in Cuba.
“The trade union movement and political parties in Barbados emerged from that struggle. They created the conditions for political and social organisations to emerge. Today, we are standing on the shoulders of Israel Lovell and I know that if Israel Lovell was here today, he would say to us that the trade union movement in Barbados is very weak.
“The leadership seem not to be representing the workers in Barbados. The trade union movement no longer has any teeth to fight on behalf of the workingclass people of Barbados,” he said, while adding that the movement stood in solidarity with the recently protesting Sanitation Service Authority workers.
Denny continued to advocate for Lovell to be made a National Hero of Barbados because he was “a very important figure”.
Lovell, he explained, was a lieutenant of Clement Payne, head of the Universal Negro Improvement Association in Bridgetown, and held a series of political meetings to create political consciousness that helped to educate the masses in Barbados about what was taking place in the world.
During the graveside visit Pan Africanist and Member of Parliament Trevor Prescod made the announcement that an Israel Lovell special award would be presented on Friday, Emancipation Day, to outstanding Barbadians
along with other awards in honour of James A. Tudor and Adrianna Gibbs.
“These are all people that made significant contributions to the national development of our people in the area of business and activists. We want to do that as an annual event and that is with all the other forms of entertainment that will be there on that specific day,” he said.
Prescod, who is Special Envoy in the Prime Minister’s Office on Reparations and Economic Enfranchisement, said that much in-depth research had been done over the last few years on the contributions of many other Barbadians.
“Historians began to bring in a lot of work and many of us Pan Africanists began to look at the work that was done in the early part of the 20th Century – and even prior to that – of the outstanding heroes that you would hear about but, in many cases, the colonial period criminalised these people and many of these people ended up serving time in prison.
“There are some of them now that you would hear us calling for the recognition of them as National Heroes and so this event . . . is one that is an imperative that every year we come here to commemorate and celebrate the contribution of Lovell,” he said.
Dr Chenzira Davis Kahina, the second assistant president general of the Universal Negro Improvement Association who normally visits from the United States Virgin Island for the event, described the occasion as special.
“I think it’s a privilege to be here with his grandchildren and the Pan Africanist freedom fighters that respectfully honour this historical, ancestral icon that is to be respected and remembered in all the annals of history in all realms of education,” she said. ( SG)
The post Denny: Trade union movement weak appeared first on nationnews.com.
