ORVILLE W. TAYLORExactly two weeks into the new year, there is more news of change than one finds in a casino.
The unbearably long People's National Party (PNP) race to replace outgoing President, P. J. Patterson is now showing signs of wear on the process of governance and often-touted harmony within the party. Predictably, having wasted two years of good media time and political energy better suited to real issues of national development, the race is turning as ugly as a marathon runner, grimacing to complete the last few kilometres, while the sun bakes like one of the captain's ovens.
Beyond the innuendoes of Portia Simpson Miller being "academically and informationally challenged," we have allegations of paper delegates, impropriety, cheating, disrespect and arrogance on the part of the 'Doctorocrats'. Little has been predicted about the chances of Omar Davies and Karl Blythe, so the 'fight' seems to be a straight battle between Mrs. Simpson Miller and Dr. Peter Phillips. However, there is the suggestion that Peter (which actually means 'rock' in Latin), has a 'solid as a rock' campaign that is showing more 'cracks' than the marriage of Bobby Brown and Whitney Houston.
rift
The rift has deepened into the next generation of 'comrades' as it has now caused a division in the PNP's Youth Organisation (PNPYO), with the president Andrew O'Kola being temporarily replaced, apparently due to his public endorsement of Dr. Phillips. Whatever might be the dispute, what seems to be clear is that the PNPYO is not united behind Phillips or is not united for that matter. This is the second major incident in a few months where the matter of leadership in the PNPYO has been at issue. Given the embattled history of the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) in the past decade, it does now appear that orange is the colour of the same green fruit when it ripens. Black dog vs. monkey!
In this matter, the JLP can say little because as we speak, there is a move afoot to displace St. Catherine Member of Parliament (MP), Everald Warmington. Obviously asleep for the past year, Warmington declares that the challenge is not by genuine Labourites but by four 'sankey-singing' National Democratic Movement (NDM) 'deportees' who want to take over the party. Amusingly, he states that no ex-NDM people should feel that they can take control of the JLP. Maybe he should talk to the party leader.
Intra-party struggles are hardly ever good for either the party or the country. We are reminded of the very ill Ariel Sharon of Israel. Sharon refused to suck up to Likud hardliners in Israel and eventually had to form the Kadima Party in November 2005, thus creating a governance crisis in the Middle East.
smooth transition
Nevertheless, back in Jamaica, we have seen a smooth transition in the leadership of the University and Allied Workers' Union (UAWU) last week. Founder, chameleon and now PNP Senator with parliamentary ambitions, Professor Trevor Munroe, has formally handed over the mantle to Lambert Brown.
The change is a de jure one since Brown has been the de facto leader of the UAWU since the early to mid-1980s. Brown, who has now grown in stature and poundage, was the main force behind the ascendancy of the union from one of the minor players to undoubtedly one of the biggest in the region. Often unfairly characterised as the enfant terrible of Jamaican trade unionism, he gave credibility to the UAWU as a non-political union after the Bustamante Industrial Trade Union (BITU), National Workers' Union (NWU) and Trade Union Congress (TUC) led a failed general strike in 1985.
Having underestimated the resolve of then Prime Minister, Edward Seaga, the only non-trade unionist head of government ever, six unions including the aforementioned three, succeeded in getting several hundred Jamaica Public Service Company workers and firemen dismissed. If my memory is correct, correctional officers were also displaced. The strike had failed due to the compromised leadership of the BITU, since President Hugh Shearer was also a JLP Member of Parliament and Deputy Prime Minister. Furthermore, the leader of the TUC had been a PNP senator and the NWU hierarchy also had PNP senators and MPs.
The UAWU, which did not participate in the general strike, survived the embarrassment and managed to take close to 3,000 members from the three major unions between 1985 and 1993. Brown was to later overplay his own hand in 2000 by getting correctional services officers 'removed' for industrial action in the essential services.
the 2000 fiasco
Interestingly, the 2000 fiasco in which he found himself was strongly reminiscent of the 1985 scenario except that this time, the PNP/NWU's Patterson and K.D. Knight were now Prime Minister and Minister of National Security respectively. Sauce for the goose? Yet, what is ironic about Brown's blunder in 2000 is that the trade union movement hypocritically denied him support even though he did what was typical of trade unionists of the day.
Brown's rise to the leadership of the UAWU signals an independence of the trade unions from political parties. This is extremely important given the recent Memoran 'dumb' of Understatement (MOU), which involved a freeze on wages. Having myself felt the effects of the MOU, I, like Brown, will only support a wage freeze if 'hell freezes over'. Then again, some of my affected colleagues think that the MOU was 'hell-spawned'.
On a closing note, Crenston Boxhill is now facing a 'no confidence' challenge as president of the Jamaica Football Federation. My confidence was lost with the hiring of 'Pizzaroni' but how come Boxhill has saved more 'dough' than the Captain? I don't know where the leadership struggles originates, perhaps they are locally-'bread'.
Dr. Orville Taylor is senior lecturer in the Department of Sociology, Psychology and Social Work at the University of the West Indies, Mona.
