On July 24, 2017, just two days shy of the 80th anniversary of the July 26, 1937 riots in Barbados, a nationwide protest called by trade unions and the private sector saw thousands of Barbadians marching against the then Democratic Labour Party administration.It was an unprecedented and historic display of unity between the trade union movement and the private sector. At the helm, the Barbados Private Sector Association (BPSA), the Barbados Workers’ Union (BWU), the National Union of Public Workers (NUPW), the Barbados Union of Teachers (BUT) and the Barbados Secondary Teachers’ Union (BSTU).Their collective beef, as stated by all the union leaders at the time, was the National Social Responsibility Levy (NSRL) tax which they described as “unfair” and “unjust”.
