General Workers' Union (Belize)

The General Workers' Union (GWU) was a general union in Belize.

History

The union was founded in 1939 by Antonio Soberanis Gómez, as the British Honduras Workers and Tradesmen's Union. In 1934, he had formed the Unemployed Brigade, followed by the Labourers' and Unemployed Association, but both had dissolved. This new organisation was the first in the country to describe itself as a trade union. In 1943, new legislation permitted trade unions to register with the government, and what was soon renamed the General Workers' Union was the first to do so.

The Belize Billboard newspaper was founded in 1946, and initially championed the GWU. In 1947 it led a strike of sawmill workers at the Belize Estate and Produce Company, which succeeded in obtaining pay increases. By 1948, the union had 5,000 members. That year, its president, Clifford Betson, gave a speech in favour of socialism, to which the Billboard objected.