The Workers Party of Jamaica (WPJ) was a Marxist-Leninist political party in Jamaica. WPJ was founded on 17 December 1978 by Trevor Munroe, along with Elean Thomas and others. Trevor Munroe, a Rhodes scholar from Oxford University, served as its general secretary. The forerunner of WPJ was the Workers Liberation League.
WPJ was a "critical ally" of the People's National Party (PNP) of Michael Manley. With WPJ backing, the PNP government developed closer relations to Cuba, which irritated the United States. However, in the late 1970s, the WPJ participated in Jamaican popular resistance to fiscal controls imposed on the country by the International Monetary Fund and accepted by Manley. The 1980 elections resulted in a victory of the rightist Jamaica Labour Party. Manley's association with the communist WPJ may have contributed to his defeat.
The WPJ youth organization, Young Communist League of WPJ, was a member of the World Federation of Democratic Youth.
By 1992, the WPJ was defunct.
References
- Johnson, Buzz (31 July 2004). "Elean Thomas: Writer with a message of human rights". The Guardian. Retrieved 31 August 2011.
- ^ Alexander, Robert J.; Parker, Eldon M. (September 2004). A History of Organized Labor in the English-Speaking West Indies. Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 56–57. ISBN 978-0-275-97743-6. Retrieved 31 August 2011.
- ^ Austin-Broos, Diane J. (1 January 1984). Urban Life in Kingston, Jamaica: The Culture and Class Ideology of Two Neighborhoods. Taylor & Francis US. ISBN 978-2-88124-006-5. Retrieved 31 August 2011.
- Nash, June C.; Fernández-Kelly, María Patricia (1983). Women, Men, and the International Division of Labor. SUNY Press. p. 138. ISBN 978-0-87395-683-3. Retrieved 31 August 2011.
Further reading
- Gray, Obika (2004). Demeaned but Empowered: The Social Power of the Urban Poor in Jamaica. University of the West Indies Press. ISBN 978-976-640-153-5. Retrieved 31 August 2011.
- Meeks, Brian (2000). "The Political Moment in Jamaica: The Dimensions of Hegemonic Dissolution". In Manning Marable (ed.). Dispatches from the Ebony Tower: Intellectuals Confront the African American Experience. Columbia University Press. pp. 52–74. ISBN 978-0-231-11476-9. Retrieved 31 August 2011.
- Struggle (Kingston, Jamaica), official organ of the Workers Liberation League - openly and freely available in the Digital Library of the Caribbean (dLOC)
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