ZIN HENRY

 

ZIN HENRY HAILED AS AN

INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS GIANT

 

By Juhel Browne

Trinidad Guardian

August 7, 2000

Page 3

 

Dr Zin Henry, former director of the International Labour Organisation Caribbean Office and Chaconia Gold recipient, has been hailed as a major contributor to the advancement of industrial relations in the Caribbean.  Henry, 79, died on July 22, at St Clair Medical after a short illness.  Letters of condolences dispatched to Henry's widow, Ruby, from senior industrial relations officials unanimously praised Henry's personal and professional life.  The letters were written by Harry Partap, Minister of Labour and Co-operatives, the ILO and LeRoy Trotman, general secretary of the Barbados Workers Union.

 

"All those who have had any involvement in the field of industrial relations over the last 35 years, would have benefited directly or indirectly, in some way from the contributions made to the field by your late husband," Partap wrote.

 

Yesterday, Ruby recalled Henry was a founding member of Industrial Court in 1965.  Sir Isaac Hyatali, a former president of the court, gave the eulogy at Henry's funeral held at the All Saint's Church on July 26.

 

Henry and his wife migrated to Trinidad from Jamaica in 1961.  "My husband held quite a few posts in Trinidad and in Jamaica," Mrs. Henry said.

 

After serving as an Industrial Court Judge, Henry conducted a one-year research assignment on industrial relations at the request of the ILO's Geneva headquarters.  When he completed the assignment, which took him to several countries including South Africa, Henry joined the ILO s director of its Caribbean Office in 1975.  That same year, his wife remembered, he received the Chaconia Gold Medal.

 

In 1981, Henry retired as director but still worked with the ILO as its sub-regional advisor in Labour Legislation and Labour Relations.  He resigned the post in 1982.

 

"His intimated knowledge of the issue and his commitment to the promotion of good industrial relation practices have been acknowledged throughout the Caribbean region.  He really left a mark there," the ILO letter stated.

 

But Henry also left his mark on Trinidad and Tobago where he served as a special advisor to two successive Ministers of Labour in the 1980s, John Donaldson and Errol Mahabir.

 

"We consider Dr Henry as a friend from whom the Caribbean has learned much and we feel his loss," Trotman wrote.

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