THE MONUMENT TO WORKERS OF 1938
STATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE
The Monument to Workers of 1938 or the ‘Kingston Workers Monument’ stands as a reminder of the bravery and tenacity of the workers and labour leaders who risked their lives in an effort to ameliorate the situation of labourers in Jamaica.
INHERENT FEATURES
The Monument is a flat-topped obelisk that is 8ft tall and 14.16ft wide at its widest point. It is made of cobblestone with a marble plaque with the following words inscribed:
“TO THE WORKERS OF JAMAICA WHO STRUGGLED IN 1938, THE NATION SALUTES YOU.”
IDENTITY- LOCAL/NATIONAL
The Monument was erected in 1977 in time for the Labour Day celebrations of that year. It serves as a reminder of the struggle of the Jamaican workers of 1930s for better wages and more rights. This movement was the catalyst for the independence movement that would follow, resulting in Jamaica being granted independence in 1962. The words of the monument allude to the efforts of people like Sir Alexander Bustamante, Norman Manley, St. William Grant and Aggie Bernard who fought against injustice.
HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE
The year 1938 represents a radical change in the course of Jamaican history; it was as if all the woes and protestations of the Jamaican people, particularly Black working-class Jamaicans, had finally reached their tipping point. The Great Depression crippled the workers’ already meagre wages and the colonial authorities seemed uninterested in rectifying this situation. Frustrated, Jamaican workers island-wide staged a series of strikes and riots in order to have their voices heard.
Although strike action took place all over the island, Kingston was the nucleus of the revolutionary activity. One of the most impactful strikes was the Kingston waterfront strike on May 21, 1938, when workers at the wharf stood in protest against the poor wages paid to them by the United Fruit Company. Stevedore and leader of the strike, David McLaughin wrote to the manager of the United Fruit Company requesting a pay increase of three pence, a request to which the company did not comply. In retaliation, the workers decided to go on strike at the Number 2 Pier (site of the present monument) until their demands were met.
Another key player in the strike actions of 1938 was Norman Washington Manley (1893-1969). A ‘brown’ barrister who later became the first president of the People’s National Party (PNP) and a National Hero, Manley’s role as a barrister was instrumental in the success of the protests. When his cousin Alexander Bustamante (1884-1977), future founder of the Bustamante Industrial Trade Union (BITU) and the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) along with his fellow revolutionary, St. William Grant (1894-1977) were arrested, it was Norman Manley who petitioned the then British governor, Sir Edward Denham (1935-1938), to release them for fear of further unrest.
Often left out of contemporary narratives is St. William Grant. Grant joined the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) as an adult and was a devoted Garveyite. He was also an early member of the Bustamante Industrial Trade Union (BITU). As it relates to the events of 1938, one could argue that St. William Grant was the first real agitator of it, as history records him leading a 500man march to the Gleaner Company to highlight the lack of employment opportunities on May 4, 1938. St. William Grant, being an uneducated black man asked the lighter-skinned Alexander Bustamante to be the face of the movement in order to legitimise it in the eyes of the colonial administration. Both himself and Bustamante were jailed for the May 1938 riots but however were soon released. As it stands, there is only one declared site that exists in commemoration of his struggle and that is the St. William Grant Park in downtown Kingston. There is also a portrait of Grant on the roadside in his native Brandon Hill district, St. Andrew. Thus, the monument, in some small measure, commemorates the memory of this sometimes forgotten yet important figure in Jamaican history.