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

Sugar Factory workers were “chastised with scorpions” when
they staged a walk-out on 11 th April, 1930 after instructions had come
from the London office of the Factory that their wages must be reduced.
They were upbraided and punished for having walked off the job. Then
the reduction of one penny in the shilling was further carried down to
another penny in the shilling.
Estate labourers felt the pinch of capitalist domination when
they held up work at the start of the 1932 crop through dissatisfaction
with the low cutting rate of 6 pence (16 cents) per ton, but were forced
to go on working for that figure under pressures of many kinds. (The
rate in 1969 was $1.58 per ton when cutting for mechanical loaders -
nearly ten times as much as the 1932 rate).
The years 1933 and 1934 brought no relief to what had become
traditional “Hard Life”. The wolf was always at the door of the working
man. Low wages, poor standard of health, limited education facilities,
etc, were still keeping workers in social and economic bondage.
The blessings of labour unions were growing freely all over the
United States of America, throughout Great Britain and other progressive
countries; but in St. Kitts the formation of Trade Unions was forbidden
by law. So the horrors of 1935 descended on the “Fertile Isle”
like a bolt from the blue. The situation erupted.
1935 Crop
The reaping of the 1935 sugar crop was to start on Monday, January 28.
The spirit of the St Paul’s Village martyrs lived again. It was seventeen
years since they had made the historic sacrifice, and the necessity for
positive action had again arisen. Estate workers knew that the efforts of
one man, or a single gang, or even an entire estate unit could do nothing
to bring about the desired end. They realised that only unity of thought,
action and purpose would help their cause.
Wages were low. For years, they had been so. The cutters were
the leading men in the estate work force. Others looked to them. They
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