Some years ago, the Jamaica Co-operative Credit Union League bought shares in a radio station, which also has television today, namely the RJR group of companies. It was certainly a very good strategic move in terms of disseminating credit union information. One of the poor decisions taken by the Credit Union League was in not taking up the offer by the government to buy a hotel in Ocho Rios, which today is Jamaica Grande.

I spent the 17 years between 1989 and 2006 trying to get the Credit Union League to buy shares in the hotel industry. I did so, literally by "Jawbone and Print", as radio commentaries and in my newspaper articles. It took me 17 years too long to realise that I was getting nowhere with the league board and their general lack of vision, and to implement the idea in another way.

For that reason, in the last two and a half years I have been trying to get people together to organise a service co-operative that would be also an employment agency. Service co-operatives are similar to the coffee, the potato growers and the fishermen's co-operatives, while credit unions are financial co-operatives. Each member of the proposed co-op would be required to be a member of at least one credit union.

Since the surplus of any co-operative, whether credit union or otherwise, is distributed according to a vote of the members of the co-op, it would be the duty of the members to go to their credit unions and move resolutions that small slices of the surpluses should go to the employment agency co-operative. This is one way to buy business enterprises so that the employment agency can have the jobs for its members. And our aim is the tourism industry, because no other industry in Jamaica provides such a wide variety of employment opportunities.

An early co-operative in Jamaica was the Jamaica Banana Producers Co-operative for which national hero Norman Manley was the lawyer. It was out of that co-op that Jamaica Welfare (now called Social Development Commission) was founded by Norman Manley in 1937. Founded to build communities, Jamaica Welfare also formed co-operatives.

As late as 1941, black Jamaicans could not even walk into a bank, let alone ask for a loan or be employed in a bank. Poor people had to get loans from "loan sharks" who wanted 75 per cent interest. This was why the Young Men's Sodality of the Holy Trinity (Roman Catholic) Cathedral, guided by Father John Peter Sullivan SJ, formed Jamaica's first credit union on September 12, 1941. After this, the "loan sharks" ceased to operate. By 1950, the Co-operative Act was passed in the House of Representatives.

In those days, one had to be trained for six months before joining a credit union. The classes were held at George's College, which is how the extension school began at that school. If my mother, Shirley Maynier Burke, could have simply joined a credit union without attending classes, my three sisters, my brother and I might never have existed. She had to go to credit union classes and there she met Keith C Burke, a lawyer who was one of the lecturers - our late father. Today, October 23, is the 60th anniversary of their wedding.

The official reason for the change of the practice in credit unions where education is no longer necessary to become a credit union member is to avoid turning off potential members. But was that why, or was it to keep the members in ignorance about the fact that they own their credit union? All credit unions are co-operatives which are all jointly owned by the members. I doubt if I will ever get a truthful answer to this.

There is a growing form of material slavery, caused by advertisements on radio, television and the Internet, which the Roman Catholic Church has warned its flock about. This warning was in the documents of the Second Vatican Council and in some encyclicals of the popes. It was also in the 1975 document Justice and Peace in a New Caribbean by the Roman Catholic Bishops in the region.

Employers gladly assist their employees in getting mortgages and instalment plans on houses and cars so that they can enslave them to their jobs as they struggle to pay the monthly instalments. If there is an employment agency co-operative, at least people will be able to meet their mortgages and instalment plans without being enslaved. And if they were trained in thrift, as was previously the practice, then members would not "hang their hats where they cannot reach them".

If Jamaica's Active Workers Bring Out National Equality and Produce Responsible Industrial Novelties Today (the meaning of "JAWBONE and PRINT"), then the struggle would not have been in vain. And until someone comes up with a better name, this is the name of the association that seeks to be an employment agency co-operative.
October, as readers might know, is Credit Union Month and last Thursday was International Credit Union Day.

ekrubm765@yahoo.com

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