Here are the facts on 'Busta', Dr Taylor

I have no desire to prolong the seemingly fruitless task of trying to improve Orville Taylor's understanding of Jamaica's history. Instead of learning from my recent lesson to him, he responds with more blunders. The trouble is that he is blindly obsessed with the idea of casting aspersions on the work of Alexander Bustamante, the latchet of whose shoes he is not yet worthy to unloose. Nor meddle with the hem of his garment.

He calls upon the name of Richard Hart to back up his inaccurate statement that, "In fact, Busta was booted from Coombs and Buchanan's JWTU (founded around 1935 or '36)".

He does not say where or when he got this information, but I am here to state that I have been a personal associate of Richard Hart since 1949; I have studied political history along with him; I also knew both Buchanan and Coombs. I was an active card-carrying member of the Trades Union Congress, attended many classes conducted by these stalwarts and I have never heard of this fabrication. To my knowledge, Coombs had invited Bustamante into his union and in a letter published in Plain Talk, a labour newspaper at the time, declared that he had voluntarily handed over the presidency to Bustamante.

Buchanan never welcomed Bustamante, whom he described as a capitalist. He constantly demonstrated his disagreement and before very long, Bustamante resigned from the union claiming that there were financial irregularities. Dr Taylor may have heard somewhere that Bustamante was expelled, but as a scholar he should have investigated and found explanation of how Coombs tried to get back in league with Bustamante. It was a front page story in The Gleaner that told of how Sir Walter Citrine and Norman Manley tried to bring the two together; and how Bustamante said, "I want to have nothing to do with Coombs."

engaged Bustamante's assistance

For the benefit of readers and for Dr Taylor's information, it is useful to quote Richard Hart who wrote in 'Rise and Organise':

"A.G.S. Coombs and Buchanan were pressing on with the pioneering task of organising an islandwide trade union … . They had very little money and the cost of travelling was a formidable problem. It was in this situation that they decided to turn for assistance to a public spirited individual by the name of William Alexander Bustamante … . A prolific writer of letters to the newspapers [he had] a reputation for being willing to lend his support publicly to any popular cause, more important, from the Union's point of view, he owned a motor car … Bustamante agreed to join the Jamaica Workers and Tradesmen's Union in 1936, initially as Treasurer.

"During 1937 Bustamante made several organising trips to the rural areas with Coombs and Buchanan, but in the latter part of the year he became disenchanted with trade unionism … also there was friction with Coombs … eventually, in November 1937, though the details of their parting are not entirely clear, Bustamante severed his connections with the Union …"

Hart was not clear on the point, yet Taylor claims he supports the view that Bustamante was "booted". In the same manner, he claims that, "Bustamante only joined the 1938 fray after he presented himself as a mediator and was rejected. Grant and Coombs were altruistic even when the workers initially repugned Bustamante's introduction." This is a canard.

waterfront workers sought help

I have written a thoroughly researched book on Bustamante and I know from many sources that initially it was the waterfront workers who sought Bustamante's help and not the other way around. Again, I cite Richard Hart, Dr Taylor's alleged reference.

"On May 26th an emergency conference was convened by the National Reform Association at which a delegation of strikers from the Kingston waterfront led by W. A. Williams was present. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss a proposal from the N.R.A. secretary Ken Hill for the formation of a waterfront workers union. Also present at the meeting was Ross Livingston, Bustamante's solicitor, who informed the workers' representatives that the proposal had the approval of Bustamante. The workers' representatives agreed to the proposal on the understanding that on the formation of the Union their leader, Alexander Bustamante '… shall be appointed president'."

In addition to Hart's report there is the testimony of Lucius Watson, a prominent port worker at the time. He relates how he and five others went to St William Grant, living at 36 Rose Lane, to tell him that they needed a leader. Grant in turn took them to Bustamante's home on Beeston Street where they asked him to come down to the waterfront where a strike was on at the Number 2 pier. Bustamante went to the scene; and the rest is the history that Dr Taylor grudgingly refuses to acknowledge.

Bustamante's union is alive and well after 75 years; and Orville Taylor finds this difficult to swallow. He cannot see Coombs and Buchanan as valiant men who played well their parts and moved on. He fashions them as convenient vehicles on which Bustamante rode to power; the same Bustamante whose intellectual capacity he facetiously questioned in a column two weeks ago.

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