Post date: Jul 01, 2021 11:13:38 PM

I have a recollection of a major conference in London dealing with developing and underdeveloped countries where Weekes went with Eric Williams. Williams was seeking to entrap Weekes, to either co-opt or neutralise him. He succeeded in doing neither. Because what I remember distinctly of that period is that while George was in London in that conference we had a series of bus strikes leading into the bus strike that led to the nationalisation of the Omnibus industry in 1964. When George returned from London, hours after his return, he came down to address the workers because we were making demands for the nationalisation of the services.

George told me that the news of the strike was heard in London and George said that Williams asked if he (George) knew me and asked "who was that upstart - Young - causing this trouble down there?" He also said then to George, that when he returned he would be relying on George to stop that nonsense going on down there since it is an essential service. But George, true to his commitment to the working class had to disappoint Williams, for after his arrival in Trinidad he was on the picket line in support of workers. I suspected that this represented Williams' last attempt to co-opt and neutralise George Weekes. So that was the kind of person George was. He supported us in our demands for the nationalisation of the service which eventually came. We were together in opposition to the Industrial Stabilisation Act. (ISA) in 1965.

Question: What was the final end result of that strike? Joe Young: I remember distinctly that I was attending an OWTU Annual Conference at Palms Club. It was a Saturday. I was sitting between Jack Kelshall and Lennox Pierre when a policeman came with a message from Williams which said that he wanted to meet me at once. I was an invited guest sitting with the Executive on the stage or elevated platform. I met Williams at Whitehall and he said that Cabinet gave serious consideration and accepted the proposition of the State acquiring the bus services. We had tremendous support from George and the OWTU. People like Ben Primus, Lennox Pierre, Walter Annamunthodo. Panday was not yet on the scene. George Bowrin, as editor of the Vanguard, was around. I remember well, being part of the OWTU delegation at Piarco to meet Bowrin coming in from London. Because I myself was very interested in meeting this man who was a member of the OWTU and went to Oxford University and became a teacher in some institution over there. I remember that night very well. There was a big delegation to meet him.

We brought the strike to an end. The strike was initially over wages and better working conditions but it broadened over a demand for public ownership. So some of our demands were met and certain compromises were reached regarding fringes and benefits in the interest of the broader question which was public ownership. At that time there were two omnibus concessionaires. The one we were involved with was called the Princes Town Special Bus Service Company Limited - a long cumbersome name - owned by the Mohammed Brothers. The other one was based in the north and owned by Mr. Ahamad. It was called the National Transit System for Port of Spain, environs and the East. The union representing the northern concessionaire opposed state ownership as a single entity. The leadership was against this. Now this strike lasted about 54 days in 1964. Clive Nunez was not yet on the scene. He was at that time a member of the National Union of Government Employees involved with the Trinidad Railways. The railway system was scrapped in its totality by 1965 or '66. (editor’s note: the railway system actually ended in 1968).

My dealings with George never ceased. The next major point of contact was with the formation of the Workers and Farmers Party (WFP). You see how rapidly these events occurred, one transferred into another. The WFP came into existence immediately prior to the 1966 general elections. All this was tied up with CLR James' departure from the PNM and the split of the Democratic Labour Party over the very passage of the Industrial Stabilisation Act (ISA) with George being the principal advocate against this Act. It was under his leadership that Platt-Mills - a famous New Zealander, left wing lawyer argued in the Privy Council. But we lost the matter on the ground that the right to strike was to be held not an inherent part of the right of freedom of association as we had argued.

All these things were coming fast and furious. Repeated attempts by the Williams regime to unseat George as President General failed because he was firmly cemented with the OWTU. He was beloved by the rank and file. He was totally committed, so committed in my view, that at that time a significant part of his membership were PNM supporters and yet George was able to launch the most blistering critiques and attacks on the PNM regime only to be applauded by the very persons who will return Eric Williams to power. It was as if the workers wanted both Williams and Weekes. They wanted Williams as their political leader and they wanted George to deal with these imperialist companies - Texaco and all these other extortionists.

And then Rojas himself, upon his resignation, did not cease his subversions against George Weekes. Subversions against George Weekes could be said to have international implications. The International Federation of Petroleum and Chemical Workers, after Rojas' resignation, had suddenly decided to form a local bureau and put Rojas in charge of it. All this designed to give Rojas a little prestige to continue his undermining efforts against George. Even Rojas' stay in the Senate, although he was originally put there as a representative for labour, he did not resign after he severed ties with the OWTU neither did the Governor General remove him. All this was designed to give Rojas a platform of prestige from which he could continue his assault against George Weekes. People, like OWTU renegade McDonald Moses who I think was a founding member, were also involved in all these machinations.

Question: So what happened to the Workers and Farmers Party?

Joe Young: If one returned to its manifesto and looked at it, it was a very radical manifesto. This is 1966. Williams was still at the height of his power and merely to utter anti PNM slogans was to endanger oneself. I recall the passage of the ISA when workers, George and myself planned to picket Parliament. It was quite clear our proposed picket was anticipated. On our arrival around the Parliament, there were opportunists such as WW Sutton and Carl Tull - leader of the Communications Workers Union. Incidentally the telephone company at the time was referred to as Party Group #1.

They had their workers there in support of passage of the Bill. When we arrived there these PNM people had placards. I remember some of the placards read - 'Weekes too Weak', another said 'Young too Young' and we were encircled and threatened and so on. I also remember it was either Montano (Gerard) or (Johnny) O'Halloran in front Parliament saying to George and myself that he was going to recommend to Cabinet that we should get a one-way ticket to Havana. Well, the Workers and Farmers Party was devastated in the Elections.

Everybody lost their deposit but its slate of candidates was of a remarkable quality. You had CLR James himself, George Weekes, Jack Kelshall, Lennox Pierre, George Bowrin, Clive Phil may have been there. I know Clive was a serious DLP man and my memory could be faulty here. I remember campaigning for George. I campaigned extensively for George for he had contested the Pointe a Pierre seat. The WFP contested all seats bar Tobago. In Central we had Krishna Gowandan (Education Officer - TIWU). He fought Capildeo I think in Chaguanas. Lennox fought a seat in the north, Kelshall either La Brea or Oropouche or some seat down there and CLR the Tunapuna seat.

During that period during Williams rush of the ISA through the Parliament, James was in Trinidad. He had come to cover some cricket match (editor's note: James was covering the 1965 Australian tour of the west Indies) and he was staying somewhere in the San Juan area (editor's note: He was staying in Barataria). Simultaneous to all that there was a strike in Sugar because the sugar workers were on a move to get rid of Bhadase Sagan Maraj. You see all these incidents were happening so rapidly - the sugar workers were looking to the OWTU for leadership. Sugar workers wanted George to lead them and the Trade Union Congress at the time with their machinations had elements such as Nathaniel Crichlow, Tull, James Manswell and all these fellows. George had resigned in disgust.

They were all envious of George's popularity so they saw him as one to be restricted, to be cut down because George in my view, as a trade union leader was standing head and shoulders above all of us. In fact, one should remember the famous statement by Williams that his major contribution to the country was in preventing the coming together of Oil and Sugar. All this time TIWU was expanding. In fact, there used to be a popular view - that there were only two trade unions in Trinidad, one headed by George and the other by his son who was supposed to be me. I don't know how the workers arrived at that because our age difference was not so great that he could have been my father (only some 13 years’ difference). But that was the impression of how the workers saw us.

Question: Any other special contact with George?

Joe Young: Well, yes. We had a relationship again with invitations to attend the OLAS Conference (Organisation of Latin American Solidarity) in Havana. I myself did not attend but representatives from TIWU, Comrades Nunez and Gowandan, while George Weekes and Bowrin did so for the OWTU. It was supposed to be in juxtaposition to the OAS (Organisation of American States) under the thumb of the imperialists. This brought a closer affinity. I remember little TIWU making a contribution of $100 to the BP (British Petroleum) striking workers and very often George would come to install TIWU's Executive and similarly I did it also in the OWTU. That was a regular feature.

In 1969, the famous Bus Strike occurred which many people saw as the precursor to 1970. This strike came due to dissatisfaction with an Industrial Court judgement by a panel headed by Sir Isaac Hyatali on wages basically. They awarded a very inferior wage. It was one of the very genuine strikes starting from the ground up.

Knowing the implications of a strike against the Industrial Court I myself was very cautious, perhaps a bit too cautious for workers, because I recall being bitterly attacked by workers and so on. The strike started, one can say, spontaneous and simultaneous roughly a month after the judgement and strangely enough the strike started on the 21st of April 1969. (editor’s note: exactly one year later on April 21st 1970, the Williams government declared a state of emergency and detained dozens of black power activists and trade unionists including George Weekes). It lasted about 3-5 weeks.

It drew all elements of opposition to the PNM together - Lloyd Best, Stephen Maharaj, James Millette, George Weekes, Basdeo Panday who at that time may have been working with the Oilfields Workers Trade Union as editor of the Vanguard. Because you know 'Bas' had to be taken to Court for writing an article in the Vanguard being critical of Isaac Hyatali - President of the Court. He won the case: the other side could not establish that Panday was in fact Editor of the Vanguard. Panday had said something about Hyatali having an iron fist in a velvet glove and that was deemed to be contempt of court. So Bas in a way went through part of his political apprenticeship around the oilfields and the OWTU. The strike failed from the point of view that it was a demand for improved wages, but the strike had deeper connotations than that. In a way it was heralding what would come exactly one year after. I am able to say this because of the underlying political implications of the strike and the ability which it had to pull various elements.

Williams had said, during that strike, that it would be a fight to the finish because striking bus workers went one day to picket Williams somewhere in a community office in Port of Spain and he was very embarrassed and annoyed about it. Striking workers confronted him with placards; they pushed them up in his face and it was there he made that statement. When the explosion in 1970 came one must remember NJAC was formed in 1969 by students on campus and they got embroiled with the Sir George Williams University in Canada. Then after, NJAC turned its thoughts to the local situation. George Weekes threw himself in at once. George was a principal speaker in that movement. NJAC had cut its teeth on local political issues in the 1969 Bus strike. I remember well, Dave Darbeau (now Khafra Kambon), David Murray (now Aiyegoro Ome), Geddes Granger later (Makandal Daaga), Kelshall Bodie, Thelma Henderson and others were virtually living in the strike camps. In fact, students used to sleep in my office.

Now George was one can say, a permanent fixture on NJAC platforms. I was also around. You see the objective conditions of that period was of such that it produced a multiplicity of grass roots peoples organisations exploding from the ground and rising all over. It was broad based. The promise of Independence never materialised and you had a whole plethora of these groups exploding all over the country.

What was important is not necessarily what they were saying but the fact that people came together and formed voluntary groups as against now there is nothing like that happening. That's the significance, that people saw the necessity to organise self activity to express their own views about society. George was arrested. I was never out of contact with him although we were based in Laventille really, and he in San Fernando. We saw each other regularly. It was either some meeting here or meeting there or some strike here and there.

There was never any disruption of the relationship at all. But I myself was not as involved as George in the 1970 situation. There were two States of Emergency and so on and then there would have been a relative lull because after the second State of Emergency (1971) Williams had succeeded in getting legislation whereby one had to apply to the police to demonstrate. Then the next major thing that would have occurred would be the formation of the ULF (United Labour Front) which came out of the struggles of oil and sugar workers and to a lesser extent, bus workers. It was George who personally invited me to come down to one of the early meetings on the formation of the ULF.

It was always George's view that workers should create a political organisation although it can be said that George was not absolutely clear in his own mind as to what should be the guiding philosophy of this workers political organisation. But on the broader question it was always his view that there should be what George would describe as a working class party. I don't think there is anybody who argues that George was an intellectual. He certainly was not but whatever be lacked in that department he made up for it with sheer commitment to workers' cause and the strength of his character. With the ULF in opposition there were six Senators. They were George Weekes, George Sammy, Alan Alexander, Lennox Pierre, Dora Bridgemohan and myself.

Question: In your opinion why didn't the ULF go from strength to strength?

Joe Young: The ULF was an amalgamation of a multiplicity of contending ideologies and personalities. The whole spectrum of political thought one could say was represented in that. One can also say it was born with the seeds of its own destruction. Thus it was fated to fail so I can say it was a miracle it lasted that long. I am in a position to say that because in most of the meetings I would be asked to chair them. Because there was this view that Joe Young does not appear to be committed to any of the contending ideological streams so I would be asked to take the "chair". I can tell you it wasn't easy. When the ULF split on the question of Basdeo Panday I was one of those who supported the so-called Raffique Shah faction. George was out of the country when the actual split occurred. It fell to myself, Shah and Sammy to hold all the public meetings and so on. I remember almost being beaten at Barrackpore and Chaguanas. Allan Alexander and James Millette were also out of the country.

When George returned he never really expressed to me what would have been his position in the meetings which took the decision to recall Panday as leader of the opposition. But the fact, that upon his return, he did not indicate any allegiance to Panday then, at least by default, he appeared to be supporting Shah. So again we found ourselves in the same camp.

Because when the see-saw game was going on between who was leader of the opposition, Bas Panday, on occasions when he regained it, never moved immediately to dismiss George and me as ULF Senators. He dismissed at once Alan, Lennox and Sammy. It was as though Bas was giving us an opportunity to come to him to say we were not in this "Shah business"! You see Bas wore several hats, one among which was being a trade union leader. But sooner or later he was driven to dismiss us as Senators.

Question: When was the last time you had a fundamental chat with George Weekes?

Joe Young: I resigned from TIWU in 1979 and went into farming sometime in June. So that my last discussion would have been early 1979 at a function to mark my resignation from TIWU where George was present. The OWTU's election right before my resignation I would have done that installation of officers. When there was talk developing to create this one big, maco party, the question of coming together and so on, I think this is the period of the so called accommodation and George was made a Senator by that grouping. I was not happy with it myself.