Pollydore funeral for Saturday
Stabroek News
March 4, 2003
The late trade union leader, Joseph Pollydore will be buried on Saturday following a Guyana Trades Union Congress (GTUC)-sponsored funeral service at the Critchlow Labour College in Woolford Avenue.
Pollydore, 94, died at the Medical Arts Centre last Wednesday.
It is still unclear whether Pollydore’s remains will be interred at the Seven Ponds, Botanical Gardens.
Stabroek News understands that relatives were expected to meet with government officials yesterday on the matter. GTUC General Secretary, Lincoln Lewis said yesterday that the union body would on Friday host a five and a half-hour ceremony to honour Pollydore’s life and work.
According to Lewis, the ceremony to be held from 1 pm to 5.30 pm, will see speakers drawn from across the region. Among those slated to speak are Ottey Simmons from Bermuda, Maurice Christian from Antigua, Stanley France from St Kitts, Livere Richards from Barbados, Hank Shields from Suriname and Lewis Anderson from the Inter-American Regional Workers Organisation (ORIT).
There are also expected to be representatives from the Caribbean Congress of Labour, the Jamaica Confederation of Labour and the Grenada Trades Union Congress.
Two hours will be allotted for former colleagues to file past the body.
On Saturday, the body will be positioned for viewing in the hall of the CLC before the formal funeral service. Pollydore who had served as the GTUC’s general secretary for 37 years before retiring in February 1999, had before that served for many years as the general secretary of the Transport Workers Union later renamed Amalgamated Transport and General Workers Union (AT&GWU).
He had joined that union in 1938 while in the employ of the Transport and Harbours Department (T&HD).
