PRIME Minister Portia Simpson Miller and several trade union leaders yesterday paid tribute to President Emeritus of the National Workers Union (NWU) Clive Dobson, who died Sunday at his home in Montego Bay, St James.

Born Clive St Aubyn Dobson, son of the late John, a preacher, and Lucille, a housewife, Dobson, who died at age 80, served as president of the NWU, deputy general secretary of the People’s National Party (PNP), and president of the Joint Trade Union Research Development Centre, which preceded the Jamaica Confederation of Trade Unions.

He was born in Kingston and attended the Allman Town Primary and the Kingston Senior School (now Kingston High), and joined the NWU in 1958 before leaving to study for his Bachelor’s degree at Cornell University. However, he has lived most of his life in Montego Bay since returning home from the US in the 1970s.

Dobson was quite active in social services in the New York/New Jersey area before returning home. He worked with the Bedford-Stuyvesant Community Corporation (Brooklyn) and the Urban Resources, Inc in New York, and the Essex County Youth Rehabilitation Commission in New Jersey.

He returned home in 1975 to rejoin the NWU as assistant island supervisor (1975-77) and the PNP as a deputy general secretary (1977-81). He was named to the Senate by then Prime Minister Michael Manley (1980-83) and was general secretary of the NWU, 1983-85, before being elected president in 1991.

He succeeded Derrick Rochester as president, but was hampered by a sustained kidney problem up to the time of his death.

Dobson refused to contest a challenge to his presidency from his vice-presidents Vincent Morrison and Danny Roberts in September, 2006, and in the run-off for the position Morrison succeeded him.

He withdrew from the race after accusing Morrison and Roberts of betraying a commitment not to challenge him for the position.

He also ran as a candidate for the PNP in the turbulent 1980 General Election but lost to the Jamaica Labour Party’s (JLP) Carl Rhoden in St James West Central.

Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller yesterday expressed profound sadness at Dobson’s passing in a release from the Office of the Prime Minister.

“The Jamaican trade union movement has lost a staunch and formidable advocate who, for more than five decades, stood at the forefront of the struggle for the rights of the Jamaica worker and the broader development of the practice of industrial relations and trade unionism in Jamaica,” Simpson Miller, a former minister of labour, said.

Morrison, who has since been unceremoniously booted as the president of the NWU and now heads its former affiliate, the Union of Clerical, Administrative and Supervisory Employees, yesterday recalled Dobson as “a giant of a man”.

He recalled his achievements on behalf of the employees of Jamaica Public Service Company as outstanding, as well as his advocacy at the Industrial Disputes Tribunal (IDT), particularly in defence of employees of the Jamaica Flour Mills in the landmark case on the termination of the employment of three unionised workers.

President of the Bustamante Industrial Trade Union Senator Kavan Gayle recalled Dobson as a man of “exceptionally good qualities, who committed himself to the betterment of the workers and the sustainability of the trade union movement”, during a period of intense opposition to the labour movement in the 1970s and 1980s.

“His contribution to the movement and its members will remain as a template for trade unions leaders, globally,” Senator Gayle said.

Roberts told the Jamaica Observer last night that he remembered Dobson as a “kind, gentle and understanding person”.

He said that, as a trade unionist, Dobson was “very meticulous and painstaking in everything he did, and was consumed by a desire to improve the conditions of working class Jamaicans”.

“His passion and commitment to the cause was exemplary,” Roberts said.

A Methodist by denomination, Dobson married Elizabeth Ann Woetzel in 1978 and is survived by her and one son.