Melis­sa Doughty

Joe Young, a found­ing mem­ber of the Trans­port and In­dus­tri­al Work­ers' Union (TI­WU) and re­tired In­dus­tri­al Court judge, died at the age of 80 at the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal yes­ter­day. He was de­scribed as a "great man" and men­tor by Gre­go­ry Rousseau, cur­rent In­dus­tri­al Court judge and pres­i­dent of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Schools Rug­by Foot­ball Union. Rousseau said many work­ers in T&T owe a great deal to Young.

"Joe Young's con­tri­bu­tion to T&T is im­mea­sur­able. Unionised and non-unionised work­ers owe Joe a great debt for the terms and con­di­tions they en­joy to­day," Rousseau said. "Joe is the last of his kind, a spe­cial kind of trade union­ist. "He is re­spon­si­ble for many prac­tis­ing trade union­ists to­day who are ben­e­fi­cia­ries of his ad­vice and over­all con­tri­bu­tion."

Young worked as a type­set­ter with the Trinidad Guardian in the 1950s, be­fore found­ing the TI­WU in 1962 and was a front­line mem­ber of the Unit­ed Labour Front (ULF) with George Weekes and Bas­deo Pan­day in the 1970s. He was al­so an op­po­si­tion sen­a­tor with the ULF for ap­prox­i­mate­ly a year and a half.

Young con­tin­ued work as a labour re­la­tions of­fi­cer af­ter he left pol­i­tics and worked with the Oil­fields Work­ers' Trade Union (OW­TU) from 1993-1996. In 2000, he was ap­point­ed an In­dus­tri­al Court judge and re­tired in 2003. He spent his lat­er years as a farmer in Cumana, To­co. Rousseau said: "The trade union move­ment lost a great leader and I have lost the per­son I con­sid­er to be my men­tor, com­rade and friend."

He re­called on many oc­ca­sions Young re­fused na­tion­al awards be­cause he be­lieved on­ly the peo­ple could ho­n­our him for his con­tri­bu­tion to T&T. Young's son, Robert shared sim­i­lar sen­ti­ments, say­ing of his fa­ther: "He was a per­son who searched for com­mu­ni­ty and found it best with­in work­ers' strug­gles." Robert al­so said his fa­ther was self-taught and read wide­ly.

Young leaves to mourn his wife, Grace, and sev­en chil­dren, in­clud­ing de­sign­ers Robert and Richard Young, Raechelle and Rod­ney Young as well as Cur­tis Hen­ry, Deb­o­rah Mo­hammed and Carl Hen­der­son. Fu­ner­al arrange­ments are to be fi­nalised.