1930s Labour Protest

HIST147 West Indian History

Dr. Terencia Joseph
 1930s Protests
• 1934-1939

• Rural and urban workers throughout the British

Caribbean marched, picketed, went on strikes

• Often the colonial governments responded by sending

police, military and even naval forces to quell the
protests

• Some protestors were killed

 Why?
Inadequate and substandard social conditions

• Poor living conditions

• inadequate and poorly constructed homes. Overcrowding

was common in urban settings

• high cost of land

• poor sanitation - few latrines, poor systems of garbage

disposal

• Extremely poor health conditions

• Mal-nutrition and under nutrition

• High mortality and morbidity

• High infant mortality rates

• Many communicable diseases

• inadequate and inaccessible health services such as

dispensaries, hospitals, doctors, medication
 Why?
Inadequate and substandard social conditions

• Lack of educational opportunities

• Very few and schools, most instances only primary

level education

• Substandard school buildings and teaching material

• Expensive fees

• Curriculum inappropriate

• Poorly trained teachers

• Racism
 Why?
Inadequate and substandard economic conditions

• Poor working conditions

• Very low wages. In agriculture wages were the same or even lower than in 1838

• Unemployment very high

• Few alternative opportunities for employment

• Workers had few rights - illegal to engage in industrial action, did not qualify for paid leave

• Trade unions were illegal

• The World War I/Great War (1914-1917), Great Depression (1929)

• Exacerbated economic conditions

• Employment became scarcer

• Wages fell

• Estates and factories closed

• Cost of living rose

 Why?
Political conditions were unsatisfactory

• Working class people had no political representation

• Qualitative franchise barred them from voting and

selection into public service

• Government service was reserved for people of

European heritage

• Crown Colony rule facilitated this lack of political

representation
 Labour Protests
• British Honduras (Belize) - February 1934

• Trinidad - May 1934 sugar workers

• St. Kitts - January 1935 sugar workers

• Trinidad - March 1935 oil field workers

• Jamaica - May 1935 banana and dock workers

• Colonial Guiana - September and October 1935

sugar workers

• St. Vincent - October 1935

• St. Lucia - November 1935 coal heavers

• Barbados - June 1937

• Jamaica - May-June 1937, 1938 sugar workers

• Colonial Guiana - February 1939

 Consequences
• Appointment of the Moyne Commission

• Legalisation of trade unions

• Creation of labour parties

• Universal adult suffrage

• Creation of wages department

• Appointment of wages boards

• Unemployment insurance

• More funding for schools