Oilfield workers assembled at Bhola’s Junction in Fyzabad to hear labour organizer Tubal Uriah “Buzz” Butler. Police attempted to arrest him; the confrontation widened into strikes and unrest across the oil belt. The event helped accelerate trade union recognition and labour legislation. A decolonial account connects this struggle to the plantation and colonial labour order while recognizing that oilfield workers were not a single community and that post-emancipation wage labour was not identical to chattel slavery.
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👉 Oilfield workers strike and revolt in Fyzabad
Huidig
19 Juni 1937
Oilfield workers assembled at Bhola’s Junction in Fyzabad to hear labour organizer Tubal Uriah “Buzz” Butler. Police attempted to arrest him; the confrontation widened into strikes and unrest across...
On 21 June 1937, strikes and unrest spread from the southern oilfields to Point Fortin, San Fernando, Penal, Ste Madeleine, Waterloo, Woodford Lodge, Port of Spain, Rio Claro and other districts....
The British Secretary of State for the Colonies told Parliament on 28 June that strikes spread northward to the sugar areas and Port of Spain on 22 June 1937, after unrest began in the oilfields....
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The Oilfield Workers’ Trade Union (OWTU) was formed on 25 July 1937 in the aftermath of the labour uprising. With Butler in hiding, he designated Adrian “Cola” Rienzi to lead in his stead. The union...
