radhica.sookraj@guardian.co.tt
“Organise, Centralise and Revolutionise” were the watchwords of T&T’s founder of trade unionism Adrian Cola Rienzi, who gave up a promising legal career to build Caribbean trade unionism in the 1930s.
Yet, his name is not known by the younger generations and his contribution is downplayed every Labour Day despite being the creator and first president-general of the Oilfields Workers Trade Union and the All Trinidad Sugar Estates and Factory Workers Trade Union.
This is why Professor of History, Dr Brinsley Samaroo, saw it fit to research the life and times of Rienzi, who was a close friend and attorney for Tubal Uriah Buzz Butler, the man more popularly associated with Labour Day.
Samaroo’s book, Adrian Cola Rienzi: The Life and Times of an Indo-Caribbean Progressive, deemed a “literary nugget” by Professor Selwyn Cudjoe, was launched on Saturday at the Naparima College auditorium in San Fernando.
Speaking to Guardian Media, Samaroo said he was inspired to write the book because T&T’s development of the trade union movement had never been written before.
“What impressed itself upon me is during this time of the Rienzi/Butler combination, it was the first time in the history of T&T that the two major races came together. That was significant, especially now that we are not as united as we should be,” Samaroo said.
He added: “Rienzi wasn’t as vociferous a public figure as Butler, so most of the headlines concentrated on Butler. Butler was the person whom the media made into someone. Rienzi, who was behind the scenes, worked in the background and didn’t attract the media and so he was neglected and Butler was put in the forefront.”
Butler and Rienzi equally played an important role in developing trade unionism, with Rienzi fiercely defending Butler in court and editing the OWTU’s newspaper the Vanguard, he noted.
It was Rienzi who later created the two main trade unions OWTU and ATSGWTU and became the president-general of both unions, continually advocating for racial unity, Samaroo said.
Samaroo noted that Rienzi’s life story provides an important lesson to the trade unionists of today.
“What the labour movement should do today is to go to the pages of the OWTU paper of which Rienzi was the editor and look at the range of activities that trade unions were meant for, education for children, health facilities and continued agitation for all kinds of unions. That is the lesson, it’s not about labour relations or getting better wages but looking at national development,” he said.
He said Rienzi gave new life to the Caribbean trade union movement by going to Guyana and forming the West Indian Trade Union Movement.
Meanwhile, Clifford Narinesingh, from Royards Publishing Company, said the book appeals to multiple audiences and is important to T&T’s history.
Several trade unionists also praised the publication. OWTU first vice president Ricky Benny said Rienzi was one of T&T’s unsung heroes.
“He encompassed and brought our two major races together. He was a sound legal mind, giving support to the trade union movement.
We need more works like this so that our youth will know the heroes of our country,” Benny said.
