Abstract
The TWA began a new phase of its development under the leadership of Captain Arthur Andrew Cipriani. In 1919, Cipriani became a member of the TWA, and two years later he served both on its Management Committee and also as chairman of its Executive Committee.1 Elected as president in 1923, his charismatic leadership style and formidable presence in subsequent years transformed the Association into the most vibrant labour organization in the colony.2
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
Kiely argued that Cipriani was chosen as a “neutral, white man” to “unite the Creole and Indian working class.” Ray Kiely, The Politics of Labour and Development in Trinidad (Kingston: The Press, University of the West Indies, 1996) 68.
Letter from D. Headley (President) and Thomas Blackwell (Secretary) to Secretary of the British Labour Party, 7 July 1921 in William Howard-Bishop, Trinidad in Parliament: The Political, Social and Industrial Situation — Being a Report Presented to the Executive Committee of the Trinidad Workingmen’s Association (Incorporated), Affiliated to the Labour Party of England (London: National Labour Press Limited, 1921) 1.
Labour Leader 18 February 1928, 24 August 1929. James noted that there were 42 branches of the TWA in 1928 and 98 branches in 1932. C.L.R. James, The Life of Captain Cipriani-An Account of British Government in the West Indies (Nelson, Lancaster: Coulton and Company, 1932) 40.
R. Reddock, “The Trinidad and Tobago Labour Movement: A Vision for the Future,” Caribbean Labour Journal 3 (January 1993): 8.
Ralph de Boissière, Glory Dead (London: Picador, 1981) 95, 208.
V.S. Naipaul, Three Novels — Mystic Masseur, The Suffrage of Elvira and Miguel Street (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1982) 167.
E.P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class (London: Victor Gollancz, 1965) 46.
Walter Rodney, A History of the Guianese Working People 1881–1905 (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1981) 62, 63.
In Britain in the fourteenth century, working men and women were not treated on equal terms. As early as 1388, the government passed a statute which established a lower wage for women. For instance, women labourers and dairymaids received lower wages than male workers who were cowherds and ploughmen. Sheila Lewenhawk, Women and Trade Union: An Outline History of Women in the British Trade Union Movement (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1977) 4. Employers usually justified lower wage rates with the assumption that women did less work and it was of an inferior quality. Lewenhawk 39.
Rhoda Reddock, Women, Labour and Politics in Trinidad and Tobago -A History (London: Zed Books, 1994) 100.
For more on the Fabians in Britain see E.J. Hobsbawm, Labouring Men (Oxford: Blackwell, 1986) 250–268.
Reddock, Women, Labour and Politics 174. In Grenada, Marryshow, a journalist and sympathizer with the working class, also championed the equality of women, “from (sic) these small colonies the women section of the population is diminishing frightfully by emigration to larger fields. Something should be done to stay their footsteps and the obligation falls heavily upon us to make conditions equal for them at home.” The West Indian 13 February 1920 cited in Jill Sheppard, Marryshow of Grenada: An Introduction (Barbados: Letchworth Press, 1987) 14.
Walter Citrine, ed., Report of Proceedings at the 58th Annual Trades Union Congress, Bournemouth. 6–11 September 1926 (London: Co-operative Printing Society, 1926) 255.
Rhoda Reddock, Elma Francois: The NWCSA and the Workers Struggle for Change in the Caribbean in the 1930s (London: New Beacon Books, 1988) 10–11.
Oilfield Workers’ Trade Union, Fortieth Anniversary July 1937–July 1977 (San Fernando: Syncreators, 1977) 45.
The TUC had more than 100 affiliated unions. It was a federal body comprising independent trade unions, each being autonomous especially in matters of collective bargaining. Hugh Armstrong Clegg, A History of British Trade Unions Since 1889, vol. 3 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994) 94, 117.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2015 Jerome Teelucksingh
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Teelucksingh, J. (2015). Early Years: The Trinidad Workingmen’s Association. In: Labour and the Decolonization Struggle in Trinidad and Tobago. Cambridge Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137462336_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137462336_3
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-49901-4
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-46233-6
eBook Packages: Palgrave History CollectionHistory (R0)