Grenada: Trades Unions Material
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- Creator
- Institute of Commonwealth Studies
TitleGrenada: Trades Unions Material
Reference codeTU.GD
Date1955-1965
Scope and ContentBulletins, constitutions and reports, 1955-1965, issued by the Civil Service Association (Grenada), the Grenada Commercial and Industrial Workers' Union, the Grenada Seamen and Waterfront Workers' Credit Union (Co-operative) Society, the Grenada Seamen and Waterfront Workers' Union, the Grenada Technical and Allied Workers' Union and the Grenada Trade Union Council.
NotesPart of the British Windward Islands Federation until 1958, Grenada then joined the West Indies (Federation) and when that dissolved in 1962 was made part of a further federation comprising Great Britain's remaining East Caribbean dependencies. After achieving "associated statehood" in 1967 it finally became independent in 1974, with Eric Gairy of the Grenada United Labour Party (GULP) becoming the country's first Prime Minister. The emergence in the 1970s of the New Jewel Movement (NJM) posed a challenge to Gairy that was met by an increasingly authoritarian approach. The NJM took power in a 1979 coup and established a people's revolutionary government (PRG) with Maurice Bishop at its head, but differences between Bishop and the more radical wing of the government led by Bernard Coard led to the death of the revolutionary leader in an armed fracas and the subsequent invasion of the island by the United States. Elections following the invasion saw the return of the New National Party (NNP), and this party or offshoots of it have governed the country ever since.
The materials held here all date from the period prior to independence and include constitutions produced in the 1950s during a period of expansion for the Grenadian trade union movement as well as later bulletins produced by both blue and white collar unions. Interestingly these latter publications concentrate on the industrial rather than the political sphere, despite (or perhaps because of) the fact that by this time Eric Gairy's union-based GULP party was in office.
Conditions governing accessAccess to this collection is unrestricted for the purpose of private study and personal research within the supervised environment of the library.
Extent1 box
System of ArrangementAlphabetically by union, and then in rough chronological order.
Finding aidsItem-level descriptions are available on the library catalogue: http://catalogue.ulrls.lon.ac.uk/search~S17/
Related files
See also Grenada: Pressure Groups Material (PG.GD), and Grenada: Political Parties Material (PP.GD), as well as Political Party, Trades Unions and Pressure Group Materials for Commonwealth countries and material in the Institute of Commonwealth Studies library's main classified sequence.
Level of descriptionfonds