The 50th anniversary of a turning point in the Island’s labour history — the clash at the Belco power plant after the strike — is to be marked.

The occasion on February 2 will include a “night of reflection” at the Bermuda Industrial Union Headquarters.

Organisers invite the public to attend and hear from those involved in the event, remembered for its confrontation between workers and Police.

On that morning in 1965, hundreds of BIU members and persons sympathetic to the cause gathered at the company’s gates to picket Belco.

In the run-up to the clash, BIU representatives approached management asking for a secret ballot of the workforce to see if they were favourable to union representation.

For disputed reasons, the gesture was not a success and, on January 16, the union called a strike on behalf of electrical workers. On February 2, 1965, a showdown erupted between demonstrators and Police that many know as the Belco Riots.

Seventeen officers were injured in the worst violence in Bermuda’s labour relations history, and it proved a precursor to the Island’s coming social unrest. The violence was quelled with tear gas. Nine demonstrators were taken to court and four BIU members went to prison.

“It was a day like no one has seen before or since,” long-standing BIU president Ottiwell Simmons later said.

“There was a warning in the air, like thunder before a rainstorm. In my mind I can still see the people picketing on Serpentine Road like it was yesterday.”