JNF-The-Working-Class-Struggle-of-Half-a-Century

ager, "I see that your boy will soon be leaving school. I am looking out
for him in the small gang." The worker felt uncomfortable. He had
planned a different type of future for his son. He told the manager that
he wanted to send the boy to learn "his trade". The manager, it was
said, was highly offended and gave the labourer the choice of sending
the lad to work in the small gang or of leaving the estate. The small
gang in those days provided cheap child labour at the sacrifice of the
dignity of the human being. It has left its stamp on many of our people
who were deprived of the opportunity to learn to read and write.
These cases help to show the extent to which the lives of the
workers were dominated by the economic system of the period.
Efforts to Organise
The land owner's chief aim was to make as much money as they could
out of the estates. In fact that was their only business. On the other
hand workers were beginning to raise vague hopes of a decent standard
of living. They had been hearing about the idea of getting together. It
was something new in this part of the world. The deplorable conditions
under which the ordinary people lived made them eager to try anything
that promised an escape from social and economic thralldom. Word
went around St. Kitts that an organization for working people was being
formed and that it would be headed by men from humble walks of life -
Frederick (Freddie) Solomon, an undertaker, Joseph A. Nathan, a small
retail business man, George Wilkes, a barber.
Nathan was probably the moving spirit. He was born in this island
and travelled to the United States where he gained knowledge of
working class organizations. In New York he saw trade unions in action.
He saw the numerous important benefits gained for American
workers as a result of the foundation laid during the previous century by
Samuel Gompers, the eminent leader of the American Federation of
Labour. Gompers became the AFL's first president in 1886 when it replaced
the Federation of Organized Trade and Labour Unions of the
United States and Canada. Having returned to his native island, Nathan
threw in his lot with other pro-gressive minded persons to spread
the doctrine of working class unity.
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