Dear Editor,
It is with shock I learnt of the death of my friend and colleague Ronald Todd, a longstanding WPA member and sugar worker. The last time I saw him was on a visit home in early July this year when I met Todd in the company of fellow WPA activist James Blair.
Ronald Todd, better known as ‘Toddy’ was a sugar worker since 1969 and was mainly based at LBI. He was one of the African Guyanese sugar workers who became a member of GAWU after the union recognition poll in 1975 and witnessed the struggles of sugar workers over the years including the 135 day strike of 1977. Todd was born in Beterverwagting but later lived at Industry on the East Coast. Before he became a sugar worker, he worked in a cinema, as a mechanic and at a bakery. He joined the WPA in 1976 in its infancy and was involved in many of the main struggles with the regime at the time. On one occasion in 1979 he was taken to the back of Mocha along with other activists and dumped off. In the food protest ‘Day of Rest’ march organized by the WPA on the East Coast on July 14, 1983, Todd along with 34 others including myself, George and David Hinds, Rishi Parsram, Deryck Gravesande, Eusi Kwayana, and Herman Holder was arrested and spent the night in the Cove & John lock-ups. Todd was active in the WPA Beterverwagting group that included James Blair, Herman Holder, Lance Matthews and George Christie. As a Dayclean newspaper distributor in his area the always upbeat Todd was a frequent visitor to the WPA office over the years of his life as an activist.
As editor of the now defunct Dayclean Global I had interviewed Todd in 2008 where he warned that grassroots people in political organisations and the wider society should be treated with respect because “later you will need them.”
The last time I spoke with him he lamented the current state of the sugar industry, to wit its collapse and the social and individual consequences for sugar workers like Todd.
In this society the salt of the earth are hardly acknowledged or treated with respect for the lives they lived and struggles they fought. Todd was one among the ‘nameless’ activists who struggle daily to make a living but could hold his head high because of the social positions that he took in defence of his own livelihood, labour rights and freedom in general. Ronald Todd was a genial, honest, and fearless working-class fighter for economic and social freedom in any season and will be greatly missed.
Yours faithfully,
Nigel Westmaas
