All Trinidad turns 80

Union president general Nirvan Maharaj, in a media release, stated that the ATGWTU was registered as a trade union on November 24, 1937 by Adrian Cola Rienzi, its first president general.

It was then known as the All Trinidad Sugar Estates and Factory Workers Trade Union and had its origin in the sugar estates.

Maharaj said anniversary celebrations will take place on November 24. He said this year represents a significant watershed in the union’s history, having represented thousands of workers for better wages and working conditions.

He stated, “The union, formerly the ATSE FWTU, had its historical origin in the sugar estates of Trinidad and Tobago and was born out of the battles, protests and demonstrations for more work, better wages and improved working conditions for those who laboured in the plantation fields.

“Moreso, in the sometimes violent encounters of the 1934 and 1937.” Former prime minister Basdeo Panday, was a former president general of the union since the 1970s, until the United National Congress (UNC) which he formed, won the general elections in 1995. The union was not limited, Maharaj said, to industrial relations, but made a valuable contribution to the social, economic, cultural and political landscape of the country.

The union, he added, gave birth to two political parties - the United Labour Front which eventually became the United National Congress and lately, the National Solidarity Assembly (NSA), led by Maharaj.