Sir Cardinal LeRoy Trotman, KA (born 9 May 1944) is a Barbadian trade unionist and politician.

Biography

Born in

Bathsheba Bathsheba (; , ) was an Kings of Israel and Judah, Israelite queen consort. According to the Hebrew Bible, she was the wife of Uriah the Hittite and later of David, with whom she had all of her five children. Her status as the mother of Solomon ...

, Barbados, Trotman studied at the

University of the West Indies The University of the West Indies (UWI), originally University College of the West Indies, is a public university system established to serve the higher education needs of the residents of 18 English-speaking countries and territories in t ...

and then

Rutgers University Rutgers University ( ), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a Public university, public land-grant research university consisting of three campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's C ...

. He worked as a teacher and university lecturer, and joined the

Barbados Workers' Union The Barbados Workers' Union is a national trade union in Barbados. It has 25,000 members and represents them directly, negotiating with individual companies in each sector. Its membership covers all areas of employment in Barbados: agriculture, to ...

(BWU). He was elected as a president of the Modern High School division of the union in the 1960s. In 1971, he began working full-time for the union, initially as personal assistant to its general secretary, Frank Walcott. In 1978, Trotman was promoted to become deputy general secretary and director of organisation for the union. He also became politically active, and in 1986 won election to the

House of Assembly of Barbados The House of Assembly of Barbados is the lower house of the bicameral Parliament of Barbados. It has 30 Members of Parliament (MPs), who are directly elected in single member Constituency, constituencies using the simple-majority (or first-past ...

, representing St Michael Central for the Democratic Labour Party (DLP). In 1989, he was additionally elected as president of the Caribbean Congress of Labour, and this increased his international profile; in 1992, he was elected as president of the

International Confederation of Free Trade Unions The International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) was an international trade union. It came into being on 7 December 1949 following a split within the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU), and was dissolved on 31 October 2006 whe ...

. Walcott became unwell in 1992, and decided to stand down as leader of the BWU. Trotman became acting general secretary, and was then elected as Walcott's successor. In 1994, he switched from the House of Assembly to the

Senate of Barbados The Senate of Barbados is the upper house of the bicameral Parliament of Barbados. The Senate is accorded legitimacy by Chapter V of the Constitution of Barbados. It is the smaller of the two chambers. The Senate was established in 1964 to rep ...

. The following year, he founded the

Congress of Trade Unions and Staff Associations of Barbados The Congress of Trade Unions and Staff Associations of Barbados is a national trade union centre. Origins The CTUSAB has its origins in the emergence of protests against the Barbados government's acceptance of an Structural adjustment, IMF/Worl ...

, and was elected as its first president. In 2002, he became chair of the workers' group of the

International Labour Organization The International Labour Organization (ILO) is a United Nations agency whose mandate is to advance social and economic justice by setting international labour standards. Founded in October 1919 under the League of Nations, it is one of the firs ...

's (ILO) governing body. Trotman retired from the ILO in 2011, and from the BWU in 2014. In recognition of his work, he was knighted in 2002, and received an honorary doctorate from the University of the West Indies in 2006.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Trotman, Roy 1944 births Living people Barbadian knights Barbadian trade union leaders Democratic Labour Party (Barbados) politicians Knights and Dames of St Andrew (Barbados) Members of the House of Assembly of Barbados Members of the Senate of Barbados People from Saint Joseph, Barbados University of the West Indies alumni Rutgers University alumni