Ot­to Car­ring­ton

The labour move­ment is mourn­ing the pass­ing of Clifton Simp­son, the First Deputy Pres­i­dent Gen­er­al of the Na­tion­al Union of Gov­ern­ment and Fed­er­at­ed Work­ers (NUGFW), who died yes­ter­day at the Scar­bor­ough Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal in To­ba­go.

Simp­son, a long-serv­ing trade union­ist, was wide­ly re­spect­ed for his steady lead­er­ship style and his com­mit­ment to im­prov­ing the work­ing con­di­tions of dai­ly-rat­ed and month­ly-rat­ed gov­ern­ment em­ploy­ees. 

He spent decades in the labour strug­gle, he ad­vo­cat­ed tire­less­ly for bet­ter work­ing con­di­tions, so­cial pro­tec­tion, and fair col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing agree­ments. Ac­cord­ing to union lit­er­a­ture, he fre­quent­ly em­pha­sised the ne­ces­si­ty of “a strong labour move­ment as the back­bone of so­cial progress.”

Known for his calm but firm ne­go­ti­at­ing ap­proach, Simp­son was part of sev­er­al ma­jor col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing teams over the years, ad­vo­cat­ing for job se­cu­ri­ty, safer work­places, and fair wage ad­just­ments for pub­lic-sec­tor work­ers.

Col­leagues re­called that he was par­tic­u­lar­ly pas­sion­ate about de­fend­ing the rights of work­ers in rur­al com­mu­ni­ties, of­ten high­light­ing the unique chal­lenges faced by em­ploy­ees based in To­ba­go and re­mote ar­eas of Trinidad.

Union Pres­i­dent Christo­pher Streete ex­pressed “deep sor­row” at Simp­son’s pass­ing, call­ing him “a loy­al com­rade, a steady hand, and a cham­pi­on for jus­tice among work­ers.”