2025/03/04 by Xuebing Cao, Roger Seifert · 1 voice
Social Sciences · #Hong Kong and Taiwan Politics #Cuban History and Society #Philippine History and Culture
paper · pdf · doi:10.1080/03086534.2025.2479804
This article compares the Hong Kong strike of 1925/6 with the 1937 Trinidad summer strikes and riots and brings together these events that took place in two separate, far-away British colonies. It provides a fuller understanding of the common factors in the two cases including British imperialist rule aligned with the interests of large corporations, the degradation of the workforce, and the absence of legal and civil rights. The ferocity of those involved was on view with the British resorting to killings, beatings, imprisonment, and outlawing of seditious materials. In contrast, the strikers and their political and trade union leaders sought to overturn centuries of injustice by any means including the destruction of property, attacks on the forces of law and order, sabotage, and stoppages of their own work and that of others. The differing causes and consequences of the two strikes are evaluated. Both colonies’ worker struggles were given support by the British labour movement, and such backing pressurised the British government to seek some form of resolution of the disputes. However, Britain’s labour movement support was limited by ideological splits that hindered a coherent defence of those workers on strike.