Dear Editor,
Both the organizers and workers of the Linden Hospital Complex must be commended for turning out on May 1, 2011, to demonstrate and celebrate the historical and noble cause – workers solidarity. Though not a large gathering and lacking formal proceedings since it was not a programmed activity with speakers, messages, greetings etc, it was still of significance and worthwhile. These people kept the faith and stood out as the solitary set of workers in Linden who came out in recognition of this day, so we know that all is not totally lost as yet and an ember remains in a town that once boasted a defiant, militant and ever vigilant work force.
Sad is it to see that Labour Day in Linden has become an almost dead day on the worker’s calendar, for no more is it considered a day of importance; the Town Week celebrations, it seems, crucified it. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not against the Town Week celebrations, but definitely something is wrong, and no one can deny that it has not contributed to the obliteration of the May Day event. What we have allowed to happen is not good, period.
Three years ago I wrote about this happening if it wasn’t addressed. In no way can any part of the Town Week celebration replace this significant working class event; nobody in their right senses would discard and relegate labour – the very basis of any society. It is through labour that man distinguished himself from other lower animals and stands over and above them; it is the very foundation of all human existence; it is labour that brought humanity from its primitive stage to its highly technological, sophisticated, enlightened level through collective effort. There have been so many dreadful battles for better conditions and higher earnings.
The soul Hubert Nathaniel Critchlow and others who so painfully struggled for workers cannot be at peace with what has taken place at Linden. It is regrettable that this is the way we have come, when a substantial amount of our workforce earn nowhere near the minimum wage which itself is headache for a working man with a family of six. It is amazing that of all people, Lindeners have turned their backs on labour, when at the end of every Town Week over the last few years there have been no changes in terms of employment for the better. It is even more unfortunate and ironic that the Linden Town Week Committee has wittingly or unwittingly been an accomplice in the destruction of this important working class day when part of its mandate is the upliftment of the town.
It should be seeking ways to encourage, enhance and build new enterprises and create jobs for a fast growing number of school leavers, absorbing the many idle young men/women and thereby blocking the latest avenues for crime, which if not soon corrected will plague the community even more. It is indeed more than a crisis situation when you have a rapid expansion in the numbers of unemployed and a shrinking labour market. No wonder many young people have no positive concept of the labour movement; some even despise it, speaking mockingly of it through pure ignorance.
Now there is no day for workers in Linden to blow their trumpet. No day to march as one in solidarity. No day to demonstrate and sound their voices to the skies in unison. “When the union inspiration through the workers blood shall run there can be no power greater anywhere beneath the sun…” is no more heard. That’s all now gone, which reminds me of the poem Hungry Child: “Why you have no food? Why is your skin like paper? You’ll be dead soon.”
I want to think that maybe, just maybe this Labour Day blunder was an oversight by both the Linden Town Week Committee and the Linden Fund, and that we will have to revisit the issue with serious consideration being given to this most important aspect of workers’ activity in our town, that must be resurrected, for without labour and respect for labour we become backward and ridiculous and the Linden Town Week will be poorer for aiding in its demise.
Yours faithfully,
Frank Fyffe
