The labour move­ment is mourn­ing the pass­ing of Clifton Simp­son, the First Deputy Pres­i­dent Gen­er­al of the Na­tion­al Union of Gov­ern­ment and Fed­er­at­ed Work­ers (NUGFW), who died yes­ter­day at the Scar­bor­ough Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal in To­ba­go.

Simp­son, a long-serv­ing trade union­ist, was wide­ly re­spect­ed for his steady lead­er­ship style and his com­mit­ment to im­prov­ing the work­ing con­di­tions of dai­ly-rat­ed and month­ly-rat­ed gov­ern­ment em­ploy­ees.

He spent decades in the labour strug­gle, he ad­vo­cat­ed tire­less­ly for bet­ter work­ing con­di­tions, so­cial pro­tec­tion, and fair col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing agree­ments. Ac­cord­ing to union lit­er­a­ture, he fre­quent­ly em­pha­sised the ne­ces­si­ty of “a strong labour move­ment as the back­bone of so­cial progress.”