The Origins of CCLCS: Historical Notes and References

1. Danny Roberts and Lauren Marsh, “Labor Education in the Caribbean: A Critical

Evaluation of Barbados, Jamaica and Trinidad,” International Labor and Working-
Class History 90 (Fall 2016): 186–95, doi:10.1017/S0147547916000132. Quotationfrom the article’s opening.

2. Michael Merrill and Susan J. Schurman, “Toward a General Theory and Global
History of Workers’ Education,” International Labor and Working-Class History 90
(Fall 2016): 5–11, the introduction to the special issue “Workers’ Education and the
Global Labor Movement.”
3. Roberts and Marsh, “Labor Education in the Caribbean,” 186–95, which examines in
turn the Hugh Lawson Shearer Trade Union Education Institute (Jamaica), the
Barbados Workers’ Union Labour College, and the Cipriani Labour College (Trinidad
and Tobago).
4. Speech by the Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago at the Inauguration Ceremony
of the Cipriani Labour College, 19 October 1966, Public Relations Division of the
Prime Minister’s Office, Release No. 372, p. 2 (hereafter Williams, Inaugural
Address).
5. Williams, Inaugural Address, 2: “prior to 1954 there was no programme of trade
union and labour education on a broad basis.”
6. Trinidad and Tobago, House of Representatives, Hansard, 3 January 1972, Second
Reading of the Cipriani Labour College Bill, statement of the Hon. E. E. Mahabir,
Minister of Labour, Social Security and Co-operatives (hereafter Mahabir, Second
Reading).
7. Mahabir, Second Reading. The committee was chaired by the Commissioner of
Labour, Mr R. D. Edwards, and included Dr Zin Henry, Mrs Bridget Massiah and Mr
John Rojas.
8. Mahabir, Second Reading; and Max Swerdlow, Brother Max: Labour Organizer and
Educator, ed. Gregory S. Kealey (St John’s: Committee on Canadian Labour History,
1990), chap. 12, “International Assignments,” 113–16.
9. Swerdlow, Brother Max, 113–14. Swerdlow arrived in Port of Spain on 19 August
1966 and met the following day with Jim Adams, Permanent Secretary to the
Minister of Labour.
10. Swerdlow, Brother Max, 114–15, summarising the recommendations of the
tripartite committee, including the naming of the College for Arthur Andrew Cipriani
(1875–1945), “one of the nation’s early crusaders for social justice and enlightened
legislation.”
11.Williams, Inaugural Address, 2, on the assistance of the International Labour Office
and the appreciation expressed by the Minister of Labour.
12. Swerdlow, Brother Max, 115–16, on the guiding principles and the academic
programme of two two-month day courses, two five-month evening courses, eight
two-week day courses and eighteen weekend schools.
13.Williams, Inaugural Address, 3.

14.Williams, Inaugural Address, 3: labour education “is generally regarded as a
specialised branch of adult education. It is not vocational education, that is to say,
training in specific jobs or skills.”
15.Williams, Inaugural Address, 3, on grievance procedure, collective bargaining,
labour legislation and public speaking alongside the social sciences and “general
matters about which the citizen ought to be informed.”
16.Williams, Inaugural Address, 3–4.
17.Williams, Inaugural Address, 4, on the field programme and its complementarity
with the Community Centre Programmes of the Community Development
Department.
18.Williams, Inaugural Address, 4, inviting trade unions to examine “the proportion of
their revenue which is set aside for educational purposes as compared with other
activities.”
19.Williams, Inaugural Address, 4: the first course to be run by the College would be for
union education officers.
20.Williams, Inaugural Address, 4, on management training, the role of the University
of the West Indies, and joint labour/management programmes.
21.Williams, Inaugural Address, 5, inviting employers to donate books to the library,
contribute to the scholarship fund launched by the Chairman of the Board of
Governors, and grant day release to selected students.
22.Williams, Inaugural Address, 5; Swerdlow, Brother Max, 116, describing the
opening: “The stately old house in a quiet, elite residential area of Port-of-Spain was
ceremoniously decorated and freshly painted in soft azure, coral and yellow.”
23.Williams, Inaugural Address, 5. The Board’s first meeting had been held only six
weeks earlier; Mr Mitra Sinanan QC served as Chairman and Mr Simeon Alexander
as Vice-Chairman.
24.Mahabir, Second Reading; and Trinidad and Tobago, Senate, Hansard, 25 January
1972, Cipriani Labour College Bill. Government expenditure on recurrent costs
exceeded TT$600,000 by January 1972, with a comparable sum committed to the
first phase of the Valsayn campus.
25.Mahabir, Second Reading: 495 graduates of day courses, 594 of evening classes
and 313 participants in seminars and conferences, leading the Minister to describe
the College as “the foremost labour education centre in the developing countries.”
26.Cipriani Labour College Act, 1972, cl. 13: “In the formulation of policies for the
performance of the duties and the exercise of the powers of the College under this
Act, the Board shall be subject to no other person or authority.”
27.C. L. R. James, The Life of Captain Cipriani: An Account of British Government in the
West Indies (Nelson, Lancashire: Coulton, 1932; repr. Durham, NC: Duke University
Press, 2014), 20–49; Bridget Brereton, introduction to the Duke edition, 2–3.
28.Brereton, introduction to The Life of Captain Cipriani, 2. James dates Cipriani’s
assumption of the presidency of the Trinidad Workingmen’s Association to 1919;
the office was in fact offered and accepted in 1923.

29.James, The Life of Captain Cipriani, 50–70; Brereton, introduction, 3, on Cipriani in
the Legislative Council from 1925 as “an influence more than a force.”
30.James, The Life of Captain Cipriani, 71–81 (chap. VI, “The Municipality and the
Trinidad Electricity Company”), on the Port of Spain electricity franchise struggle;
101–7, on Cipriani as a man and leader, including his address to the British Labour
Party’s Commonwealth Conference of 1930.
31. Eric Williams, History of the People of Trinidad and Tobago (1962; repr. London:
André Deutsch, 1964), 220–24, 242, naming Cipriani first of “the great trinity in our
movement for self-government” and the leader who “gave dignity to the barefooted
man.”
32.Brereton, introduction to The Life of Captain Cipriani, 3, on the divorce controversy
of 1931, the resignation of Sarran Teelucksingh and the resulting damage to the
Association’s multiethnic base; and Williams, History of the People of Trinidad and
Tobago, 242, on Cipriani’s opposition to Butler in 1937.
33.Williams, Inaugural Address, 1, recalling the unveiling of the Memorial Statue at
Independence Square on 18 April 1959 and describing the College as “a more living
testimony to the contribution and work of Captain Cipriani.”
34.Williams, Inaugural Address, 1: the proposal that the institution be named the
Cipriani Labour College came from the representatives of the trade unions
themselves.
35.Williams, Inaugural Address, 5.
36. Ewart Rouse, “The big four of our Labour College,” Trinidad Guardian (Port of
Spain), Wednesday 19 October 1966, 8. The feature appeared under the paper’s
“Men in the News” rubric on the morning of the inauguration and profiled the four
men “connected with the establishment and operation of the Trinidad and Tobago
Labour College, which will be officially opened today.”
37.Rouse, “The big four,” 8, on Mitra Sinanan, Chairman of the Board of Governors:
born 1910; founder of the League of Coloured Peoples and vice-president of the
Indian Students’ Association in Great Britain in the early 1930s; legal adviser to the
British Empire Workers, Peasants and Ratepayers Union (1937–51); President of the
Sugar Industry Labour Union; Member of Parliament; member of the Trinidad
Labour Party; legal adviser to the Amalgamated Workers’ Union; and one-man
tribunal in the dispute betweenChaguaramas Terminals and the Seamen’s Union.
38.Rouse, “The big four,” 8, on W. W. Sutton: a welder who saw the need for a welders’
association in 1950; by 1953 secretary of the Amalgamated Engineering Workers’
Trade Union; a member of the Wages Council for the baking and later the laundering
industries; organiser and elected secretary of the National Union of Musicians and
Calypso Artists in 1956; vice-chairman of the Joint Industrial Council in 1961; and
secretary of the National Trades Union Congress from 1964, “with the labour
movement divided.”
39.Rouse, “The big four,” 8, on Simeon Alexander, Vice-Chairman of the Board of
Governors: a former group scout master and employee of the Trinidad and Tobago
ElectricityCommission, associated with the Federated Workers’ Trade Union from

1941 and elected its President in 1955; first vice-President of the Trinidad and
Tobago Trades Union Congress from 1956; President of the Cement Workers’
Union; appointed to the Elections and Boundaries Commission in 1963 and to the
Board of Management of the Industrial Development Corporation some seven
months later; and Industrial Relations Officer of Trinidad Sugar Estates, Orange
Grove.
40.Rouse, “The big four,” 8: Max Swerdlow, Education Director of the Canadian Labour
Congress, was “the man which the International Labour Organisation probably
thought most equipped with the practical experience and know-how needed to set
up the Trinidad College,” and held the post of acting Director of the College. See
also Swerdlow, Brother Max, on his Canadian Labour College work.
References
• James, C. L. R. The Life of Captain Cipriani: An Account of British Government in the
West Indies. 1932; reprinted with an introduction by Bridget Brereton. Durham, NC:
Duke University Press, 2014.
• Rouse, Ewart. “The big four of our Labour College.” Trinidad Guardian (Port of
Spain), 19 October 1966, 8.
• Roberts, Danny, and Lauren Marsh. “Labor Education in the Caribbean: A Critical

Evaluation of Barbados, Jamaica and Trinidad.” International Labor and Working-
Class History 90 (Fall 2016): 186–95. doi:10.1017/S0147547916000132.

• Merrill, Michael, and Susan J. Schurman. “Toward a General Theory and Global
History of Workers’ Education.” International Labor and Working-Class History 90
(Fall 2016): 5–11.
• Swerdlow, Max. Brother Max: Labour Organizer and Educator. Edited by Gregory S.
Kealey. St John’s: Committee on Canadian Labour History, 1990.
• Williams, Eric. Speech at the Inauguration Ceremony of the Cipriani Labour College,
19 October 1966. Public Relations Division of the Prime Minister’s Office, Release
No. 372.
• Williams, Eric. History of the People of Trinidad and Tobago. 1962; reprint, London:
André Deutsch, 1964.
• Trinidad and Tobago. Hansard, House of Representatives, 3 January 1972, and
Senate, 25 January 1972: Cipriani Labour College Bill.