Trade Union Leader and 'Red Sky': 1950-1951
Eric Gairy returned to Grenada from Curacao in December, 1949 to enter trade unionism and politics. In 1950 he founded the Grenada Manual, Maritime & Intellectual Workers' Union (GMMIWU) and was deeply involved in encouraging the 1951 general strike for better working conditions, this sparked great unrest - so many buildings were set ablaze that the disturbances became known as the 'red sky' days - and the British authorities had to call in military reinforcements to help regain control of the situation. Gairy himself was taken into custody.
Read more about this topic: Eric Gairy
Famous quotes containing the words trade union, trade, union and/or leader:
“The most conservative man in the world is the British Trade Unionist when you want to change him.”
—Ernest Bevin (1881–1951)
“With respect to a true culture and manhood, we are essentially provincial still, not metropolitan,—mere Jonathans. We are provincial, because we do not find at home our standards; because we do not worship truth, but the reflection of truth; because we are warped and narrowed by an exclusive devotion to trade and commerce and manufacturers and agriculture and the like, which are but means, and not the end.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Every good cause gained a victory when the Union troops were triumphant. Our final victory was the triumph of religion, of virtue, of knowledge.... During those four years, whatever our motives, whatever our lives, we were fighting on God’s side. We were doing His work. What would this country have been if we had failed?”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“A political leader must keep looking over his shoulder all the time to see if the boys are still there. If they aren’t still there, he’s no longer a political leader.”
—Bernard Baruch (1870–1965)