THIS DAY IN OUR PAST

The following events took place on March 5 in the years identified:

1982:

More than 200 employees of the Hanna Group of Companies’ dry goods shops are to be made redundant and the business sold, The Gleaner understands. The National Workers’ Union, which represents the workers, urges the management to assist in securing the employment of the workers under the new management. A spokesman for the Hanna’s management says the matter is being discussed at a board meeting at the company’s Norman Road head office in Kingston and a statement will be issued by Monday, March . Eight Hanna shops were closed in February 1978 and 200 workers laid off. At that time, the Government-appointed chairman of the group, Mr Locksley Harvey, said that the closure was effected in the face of a $2-million loss in one year. 1984:

India becomes the 11th member of the International Bauxite Association, when the high commissioner to Jamaica, Mr Ram Lal, presents his country’s instruments of accession to Jamaica’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Mr Hugh Shearer at the ministry. 1986:

Agriculture collapses in St Mary to the point farmers no l onger fear praedial larceny as there is nothing to steal. A portrait of poverty in the parish is described to the monthly board meeting of the Jamaica Agricultural Society (JAS), as farmers express increasing concern about the plight of the sector. As a result, a development project to deal with the problems of the parish is to be established by the JAS “to give farmers an opportunity to air their views and reveal their own ideas regarding the future development of agriculture in their parish”. In a resolution, which is sent to the JAS by the St Mary Association of JAS Branch Societies, the farmers say that the economy of the parish has collapsed in a most “dramatic manner.” While the parish once produced more than 40 per cent of the exportable bananas, current banana production has reached an “unbelievable low”.

The Gleaner Archives