PROMINENT trade unionist, the late P. P. Narayanan, often quoted this when he met journalists: “There’s a lot of darkness under the lighthouse.”
PP, as he was fondly referred to, was a trade unionist through and through.
In the early 1950s and 1960s, PP organised estate workers into a trade union, thus securing better terms for wages and benefits.
PP’s National Union of Plantation Workers helped lay the foundation for trade unionism in the country, promoting workers’ interest and protecting their rights.
He helped give birth to other trade unionists who later made a name for themselves. Workers found their voice when trade unions were formed though they were not necessarily always calm and composed.
In the early days, there were industrial disputes that were settled in the streets, with picketing and strikes.
Today, it is safe to say that militant trade unionism is dead. And thank God for that!
Clearly, we are better off without such a disruptive brand of trade unionism. The days when employees down tools are really over, the last being the dispute between Malaysia Airlines and its employees in the early 1980s.
This kind of industrial action was the order of the day for many years in the 1970s and 1980s. When wage talks between the management of MAS and staff who were members of the Airline Employees Union (AEU) broke down, the union opted for industrial action, which had far-reaching consequences.
The dispute generated a lot of bad press locally and internationally. MAS employees were members of the Airlines Employees Union, an industry-based union. When the wage dispute ended in a deadlock, the union leaders moved for industrial action to back their claims.
Since the union was industry-based, union members from the other airlines joined the industrial action as a show of support and solidarity. This led to MAS aircraft not getting serviced when they landed overseas, an action which could have crippled the national flag carrier.
Such actions met with drastic counter action from the government. The then prime minister Tun Hussein Onn went before Parliament to initiate action that finally led to the end of the dispute, which included deregistration of the AEU.
Government intervention finally restored MAS services full-scale and brought back industrial harmony that has lasted till today. An in-house union was put in place; labour laws were amended and militant trade unionism was buried alive.
Trade unionists like PP, Jamaluddin Isa, V. David, A. Ragunathan, T. Narendran, Ahmad Nor and Zainal Rampak, individually and collectively, gave real meaning to Workers Day. Their soundbites may have been full of fire and fury, but they were genuine spokesmen for ordinary blue collar workers.
Many of their demands were incorporated into laws (better maternity benefits, leave, medical benefits and general terms and conditions of service).
Truly, they were legends in their field and helped gave dignity to labour. Today’s trade unionists should remember these names and not let them be forgotten.
Twitter: @aatpahitmanis
The writer is a former NST group editor. His first columnappeared on Aug 27, 1995, as ‘Kurang Manis’