THIS DAY IN OUR PAST

The following events took place on March 4 in the years identified: 1980:Commission

A strike of Water employees leaves the Corporate Area without water. Hospitals, schools, offices, factories and other business places, as well as homes, are affected.

A breakdown of talks between the Water Commission and the three unions representing the employees – the Bustamante Industrial Trade Union, the National Workers Union, and Jamaica Union of Public Officers and Public Employees – trigger the strike, which began early in the morning and lasted throughout the day. At nightfall, Labour Minister Howard Cooke schedules a meeting at the ministry with representatives of the commission and the three unions. The meeting is set for 7 p.m. 1980:of The first shipment

26,000 tons of Jamaican alumina for the Soviet Union is loaded on the Norwegian vessel Bardu at Port Esquivel in St Catherine. This shipment forms part of alumina sales transactions signed in 1979 by the Jamaican Government, under which Jamaica will supply alumina to Venezuela, Alcan, Canada and the Soviet Union. Under these agreements, 76,000 tons have already been shipped to Venezuela and 20,000 tons to Alcan. The agreement with Venezuela provides for one million tons to be supplied over a seven-year period, starting December 1978. Under the Jamaica-Soviet agreement, signed when Prime Minister Michael Manley visited that country in 1979, a minimum of 50,000 tons of alumina will be shipped to the Soviet Union annually between 1980 and 1984, and some 250.000 tons annually thereafter. Rain fell through1984:out

the entire island, and unconfirmed reports say that there are heavy downpours in Trelawny and St Ann, particularly in the Duncans and Lime Hall areas. According to a source at the Meteorological Office at Palisadoes, the rain is due to local conditions and not to any external condition, such as a frontal one. The source is, however, unable to confirm reports of heavy flooding in areas in St Ann and Trelawny.

– The Gleaner Archives

Today’s Gem

“When one door of happiness closes, another opens, but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one that has been opened for us.” – Helen Keller