In response to the protracted hospital members strike in April 1981, myself, Ellen-Kate Horton and Dale Butler were intimately involved in the attempt to convince the Bermuda Union of Teachers to stage a one-day action in solidarity with the Bermuda Industrial Union. This involved two attempts. The first meeting on April 30 unsuccessfully pushed for a solidarity strike on May 1. A few days later, on May 4, members were convinced to vote to strike on May 5.

Their vote to take a one-day strike in solidarity with the members of the BIU represented a paradigm shift for Bermuda. Before 1981, there had never been strike action involving employees from one union in support of another union – manifesting solidarity.

At that time, the BIU was facing injunctions and court action by various major employers. President Ottiwell Simmons was heartened by my phone call on the evening of May 4, informing that the BUT had voted for a solidarity strike the next day. Ottie undertook to immediately contact the media to call for a general strike. I then called Eugene Blakeney, the president of the Bermuda Public Services Union, to inform him.

Note that the BPSU’s membership of more than 3,000 — compared with the BUT’s 700 — put it at a disadvantage for an eleventh-hour consideration of joining the strike.

The decision was made for BUT members to meet at Bernard Park at 10am on May 5 and march up Cedar Avenue to Church Street. This was an effort to encourage others — unionised and non-unionised — to join those gathering at Union Square. While we were hopeful about BUT member turnout, we were pleasantly surprised by the attendance of elders such as Eva Hodgson, Lorraine Fubler, Betty Kawaley, Veronica Ross and others who led the nearly 200 members.

The BUT received a hearty welcome from those gathered. However, there was overwhelming emotion when the Electricity Supply Trade Union from Belco surprised us all at Union Square, bringing tears to many eyes given the thorny history involved. That healing moment proved to be another paradigm shift for Bermuda.

That role taken by our elders in 1981 inspires us — as today’s elders — to reach out to the leaders of the Bermuda Trade Union Congress at this time. Here in 2025, we all face a global crossroads with far-reaching implications for the entire human family. Fostering solidarity within our organisations, across the island and across the planet, is vitally important at this time.

If not now, when?

The ongoing global crisis offers both dangers and opportunities. We are making the case that any success of 1981 was based on an openness to the big picture — an approach that was cross-generational and cross-community in nature.

Just weeks after the general strike, the three of us were involved in an historic act of solidarity with the people of South Africa. On June 26, 1981, South Africa Freedom Day, a picket was organised to peacefully protest the revelation that the Bank of Bermuda had been involved in a loan ignoring United Nations sanctions against the apartheid regime. A majority of the 30 or so participating picketers were BUT members. That event proved to be foundational for local unions to join the Bermuda Anti-Apartheid Coalition a few years later.

Here in 2025, unions and other people of conscience around the planet are adding their voices of solidarity with the people of Gaza facing what the World Court, the International Criminal Court, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and numerous other experts have determined is genocide. When the late Desmond Tutu visited Israel more than a decade ago, he reported that the circumstances faced by the Palestinian people were “far worse” than the apartheid that Black South Africans had faced.

This explains why the South African Government has provided global leadership in solidarity to address the genocide through the World Court. This notwithstanding the serious domestic challenges that they have faced since winning their democracy.

On this Labour Day, we encourage the Bermuda Trade Union Congress to use this opportunity in these most challenging times to reaffirm an essential commitment to solidarity — at home and abroad.

• Glenn Fubler represents Imagine Bermuda. This opinion is supported by fellow former Bermuda Union of Teachers presidents Ellen-Kate Horton and Dale Butler