REVIEW: The History of the Bermuda Industrial Union

For some of us, Christmas came early in the form of the much anticipated ?The History of the Bermuda Industrial Union? commissioned by Bermuda?s largest and most powerful union, the BIU.

The book, authored by none other than Mr. Ira Phillip provides a veritable bounty for scholars and laymen alike and also encapsulates the history of one of the most important Bermudian institutions ? that being the Bermuda Industrial Union ? and the movement that spawned it.

When asked to do a review of the recently published work, I was at first reluctant to accept, fearing that I could never do it justice. Could I be objective was an obvious first question?

Not only do I know the man whom I admire greatly, but I am also someone who is a supporter of the same labour movement that he chronicled.

What approach would I take? A reviewer after all has to not only view the work in isolation, but also, I believe, examine the work in question from a comparative basis as well.

How does the work in question stack up when compared to other works of the same genre?

Clearly, I have answered all of the above in the affirmative. In fact, in answering the last question posed, I can say without reservation that ?The History of the Bermuda Industrial Union? authored by Ira Phillip stacks up very, very well.

Especially when one considers that the author was also competing with himself, having previously authored the ground braking and highly celebrated ?From Monk to Mazumbo? close to a decade ago.

Once again, as expected, Mr. Phillip has delivered, and delivered in a grand style, which serves his subject matter in a profound and compelling fashion.

As a young student growing up in Bermuda, there were scant opportunities either in the classroom or without, to learn much about Bermuda?s history.

Unlike today, when there are perhaps scores of published material, there existed a big void up until the 1970s of published material that in a scholarly way told the story of Bermuda from a balanced perspective.

Let?s face it, Bermuda has never possessed a robust intellectual and literary culture, although that is slowly changing. Those were undoubtedly the bad old days in more ways than one.

Oh sure, there was Terry Tucker and her thinly veiled, rather racist view of Bermuda?s past which was all the vogue in the 40, 50?s and 60?s. However, the African Bermudian perspective was hardly heard and certainly not something found in a classroom or local library.

Indeed, Mrs. Tucker went even further by disseminating the cruel and pernicious myth, which gained great currency for years afterwards, that Bermuda?s white slave owning class afforded their Negros far better treatment then was commonly assumed and far better than that afforded to their brothers and sisters in other locales.

In other words, that slavery in Bermuda was benign and the stereotype of the ?Happy Bermudian Negro? was born.

Thankfully, Ira Phillip has never taken this approach and he along with others such as Cyril Packwood, Dr. Eva Hodgson, Neville Darrell and others have, successfully I might add, given voice to the voiceless and form and substance to the stories of those-who in some cases-have been long forgotten.

They have also ? Philip in particular ? gone a long way in deconstructing the myth of the ?The Happy Negro?.

The other major plus with respect to the author is that he is a peerless historical researcher who combines that with the finely honed skill of a consummate storyteller.

With the ?History of the Bermuda Industrial Union? those talents are found in rich abundance, providing us with a rare and singular insight into the goings on of the period under question.

The appearance of recently released archival colonial era documents also enrich the book considerably and thus our understanding of that era.

The book is simply, through much of it, a tour de force. It gives the reader a thoughtful and through look at the emergence of the Labour movement its growth and inevitable institutionalisation in the form of at first, the Bermuda Workers Association and latterly, its subsequent incarnation under the banner of the present day Bermuda Industrial Union.

The work also chronicles the struggles of those who led from the front. Men like Dr. E.F Gordon, Leonard Bascome, Martin T. Wilson and those of more recent vintage such as former president Ottiwell Simmons.

The book also sheds a more unflattering picture of those who opposed them. Men, who possessed privilege and power, which included an assortment of various colonial Governors, and locals, such as Sir John Cox, Sir Reginald Conyers and countless others from Bermuda?s moneyed White elite.

These men come off in the book as the proponents of a stiff upper lip brand of racism that was ultimately so corrosive and demeaning especially to those who were the recipients of their displeasure, as to stagger belief in the modern mind.

Two men in particular, Cox and Conyers, can only be viewed as the truest of the true believers, who viewed black Bermudians if not as innately inferior, then certainly as second class citizens, a view that had wide currency throughout much of Western society during that era.

It would not be too unfair to say they that it was upon the efforts of such men that the edifice of Bermuda?s own form of Apartheid was maintained and nourished well into the early 1960?s.

One absolute gem in the book and there are many, has to be the letter submitted to then Governor Leatham by Sir John Cox, who expressed his views quite forcefully on the matter of the protest petition which had been carried by Dr. Gordon on behalf of the BWA to the Secretary of State, Creech Jones in London.

In his memorandum to the Governor dated November 16th 1946, Cox, then a sitting Member of Parliament and paterfamilias to one of Bermuda?s leading merchant families, turning to the issue of desegregation stated:

??The Coloured people are essentially Negroid, and the physical differences between them and the White man are far greater than those between Arab and Jew (It is necessary to call attention to the marked incompatibility of the latter, although in these cases differences of religion do play a great part).

?In order to deal with the racial problem as it exists in Bermuda it is necessary in the first place to recognise that the difference is fundamental and that it could only be finally resolved through wholesale intermarriage ? a process so highly repugnant at any rate to the White population, and perhaps to both, that it must be discarded as wholly impracticable.?

Some of the new information gleaned from the book such as the role of the Garvey movement in Black life in the early part of the 20th Century or the tireless machinations employed by Dr. Gordon in his battle of wits with the white oligarchy are priceless.

They powerfully assist the reader such as the Cox memo cited above, in allowing one to construct a fairly insightful picture of Bermuda. Particularly that period from the early 1900?s to the mid 1960?s that leaves the reader with no doubt as to the forces of reaction both Bermudian and British, that were intent on maintaining their grip on the political economy that they so thoroughly monopolised.

As a storyteller, obviously influenced by his decades of reporting, both for the electronic and print medium, most notably at the now defunct black owned newspaper the Bermuda Recorder, Phillip leaves no stone unturned and also helps to deconstruct some very shop-worn myths that have gained wide currency in the Bermuda of today.

One example cited occurs very early in the book. In 1853 when black Bermudians were still trying to establish themselves socio-economically, the then legislature passed a Bill that essentially provided for the importation of Portuguese nationals.

This bill was designed chiefly to undermine the emerging black labour force by-as Phillip states-undercutting wage rates demanded by Black workers and furthermore to achieve the goal of bolstering Bermuda?s non-black population.

This action also marked in response, the first protest movement on the part of black Bermudians in the post emancipation period, specifically 536 men who were brave enough to sign a petition to protest the obvious intention of the then legislature.

One particularly grating aspect of the Bill was that this immigration initiative would entail various economic incentives that were to be footed by the tax payers, which included the same people who were targeted by the above mentioned bill.

The myth, thus dispelled, was that white, and particularly Portuguese migration to the country was sought because Bermudians in this case black Bermudians were unwilling to do the work that the Portuguese and others were bought in to perform.

The truth, as highlighted in the book, makes it clear that that was not the case at all and that the prime motivation on the part of the white oligarchy was a racial one inspired by the fear of the rise of an assertive and cohesive black majority which conceivably could eventually challenge their unalloyed economic and political privilege and dominance.

Perhaps this explains the less than sanguine attitude of many black Bermudians on the issue of immigration and why for many the past is always prologue, particularly with respect to the immigration of whites into the country historically.

On too many occasions it has been at the expense of Bermudians of African descent both politically and economically.

If there is one criticism of the work, it would have to be with the final third of book.

Essentially, the historical narrative chronologically ends with an account of the watershed event known as the 1965 BELCO strike and the subsequent riot that followed it.

This is then followed on page 187 with a rather riveting account of the 1981 general strike that bought the country to an absolute standstill.

There is however very little historically in the book that covers that period of the late 1980?s up till the present, which would chronicle the final years of Ottie Simmon?s presidency and that marked by the presidency of the current incumbent Derrick Burgess.

In fact, what does follow the account of the ?81 strike is titled ?Anecdotal History? which consists of a series of vignettes of various union stalwarts and officers of the modern era, which includes their profiles and brief Union history.

This chapter is followed by others that deal with some of the Union?s business activities over the years, an account of the various legal battles that were faced by the institution, including the precedent setting ?Sequestration Order? of 1992, the building of the present day head quarters, and lastly, a rather brief telling of the retirement of Ottie Simmons in 1996.

Now, all of the above is important but somehow it does tend to take one away from the momentum and flow of the brilliant historical narrative that we richly feasted upon over the preceding chapters. Yet on the whole, the book remains a gem and one that should be cherished for decades to come.

The Union and of course Ira Phillip are owed a deep gratitude for the completion of a very worthwhile addition to our understanding of Bermuda and its people. This is the Christmas gift that just keeps on giving.