The Formative Years 1938 -1962
On the 10th April 1962, the Jamaica Labour Party won the general elections which were called to decide which Party should lead the island into Independence. in accepting the victory, Sir Alexander Bustamante the Prime Minister-Designate made a radio broadcast in which be restated the principles which had guided the Party since it was founded on July 8 1943, and which would still guide it as it led Jamaica on the path of nationhood. In the course of the broadcast he said:
“In 1938 when I first started to liberate Jamaica it was a time of great national troubles, and we were greatly in need of help of all kinds. I was offered communist help at the time and I refused it, for I have been always against communism.”
At that time when I led the movement against oppression and inequality, I told the people that no man was responsible for the colour of his skin. It was not the colour of his skin that counted but the man’s heart. Finally, when I led the workers against exploitation by employers I indicated that capital must learn to work fairly with labour and labour must give a fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay. Those have been the three cornerstones in the building of our nation and I have maintained the strength of my belief in these things throughout the years…”
Sir Alexander made reference to the difficulties that would face Jamaica in the future and concluded...
“But I have men of talent, and we have a programme that I aimed at lifting
the small man, for his time has come to have better consideration and a better life.”
There, simply stated were the principles that had guided Bustamante through 24 years as Leader of the island’s most powerful trade union the Bustamante Industrial Trade Union (BITU), and 19 years as the Leader of Jamaica’s most successful mass-based political organisation. The Party had been formed in 1943 to take the struggle of the workers, until then confined to collective bargaining and the advocacy of social legislation, to the field of politics where the power of the state could be won for the workers and become an instrument for the improvement of their standard of living, and the reduction of social and economic inequality.
The JLP won the first elections in which the propertyless working classes had a vote and remained in office until January 1955. During this time the foundation of our economy were laid and the first bauxite company started operations. A total of 88 schools were built to make space for 99,000 children of school age who were growing up in illiteracy. Programmes of land settlement made land available to small farmers.
In opposition the JLP continued to be the champion of the poor and to assert that the problems of poverty and unemployment could be dealt with through cooperation between labour and capital in a market economy. Growing confidence in the JLP and the Party’s successful advocacy of independent statehood instead of federation saw Sir Alexander Bustamante leading the Party to another victory in April 1962 and becoming the first Prime Minister of an Independent Jamaica.
The JLP Government continued to show concern for the education of the children. The JLP built 126 primary and 40 junior secondary schools to make primary and secondary education available to 64,000 children, who even in 1962 still had no school places. The Government implemented programmes to improve health care, water supplies and other social services including the construction of 3,000 houses per year. Two important pieces of social legislation were passed into law in 1964; the National Insurance Act to introduce the first programme of comprehensive social security and the Foreign Nationals and Commonwealth Citizens Employment Act to guarantee to qualified black Jamaicans the right of first option on the best jobs in the economy, and put an end to the colonial practice of reserving them for white expatriates. The Government also condemned the practice of banks and airline companies of only employing fair-skinned Jamaicans in clerical and managerial positions.
Bustamante retired in 1966, Donald Sangster led the JLP into the 1967 elections which the Party won only to have Sangster die after one month in office. Hugh Shearer succeeded Sangster as Prime Minister and Edward Seaga succeeded him as Minister of Finance. It was to be more growth under the Shearer Administration, and increasing use of the budget by Seaga as an instrument of social policy. There were two famous budgets. The Reform Budget which announced government’s intention to introduce Family Courts, a National Youth Service, a National Minimum Wage and Legal Reform to protect the inheritance rights of children of unmarried parents and to remove the concept of bastardy from, the laws of Jamaica. These progressive programmes were still in the planning stage when the JLP lost the 1972 elections and the credit for all the progressive programmes went to another administration. The budget also introduced measures which drew more taxes from the more prosperous section of the society and removed from the tax roll 20,000 small taxpayers who were earning less than £500 per year. The "Share-The-Wealth" Budget (1970) introduced a programme of grants to unemployed female heads of households who needed funding to set themselves up in small-scale businesses. Poor relief rates were increased, gratuitous grants of NIS pensions were made to retired and destitute persons who had not made enough contributions to qualify as of right. The administration, inspired by Prime Minister Shearer passed laws to entitle categories of workers not covered by collective bargaining, to vacation leave with pay and another was passed to entitle workers who had a certain number of years of service with their firms to receive redundancy payments.
The Urban Development Corporation (UDC) was founded to give coherence to and lead the way in the development of urban and foreshore properties. The financial infrastructure needed to promote growth in a developing country including institutions like the Jamaica Development Bank (JDB) and Merchant Banks, was put in place.
Very importantly, initiatives were started which aimed to give Jamaicans a greater stake in the productive enterprises in the country through a programme of Jamaicanization of certain financial institutions and then by the purchase of extensive tracts for sugar lands for redistribution to cane farmers.
The sixties were very good years for Jamaica. The economy grew at an average rate of 6 per cent per year, and Jamaica recorded the highest per capita growth amount the independent developing countries in the Latin American region. There was tremendous improvement in opportunity for employment, education and the social services; infant mortality declined from 49 to 31 per thousand and by the calculations of Professor Carl Stone there was a 225% improvement in the standard of living of the people between 1962 and 1972.
And yet there were groups in the society that sought to belittle this achievement and to suggest that with a new approach to government, things could be made substantially better in a short tine. The JLP was defeated in 1972 by the notion that its great achievements were trifling and that under another government better would come.
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