Durrant Pate/Contributor

In celebration of Workers Week 2025, which will be commemorated from May 18-24, three stalwarts of Jamaica’s labour movement will be specially recognised.

They are former prime ministers Portia Simpson Miller and Hugh Lawson Shearer, as well as Lynden Gladstone Newland, who is credited with the formation of the National Insurance Scheme (NIS) during his tenure as labour minister 1962-1972.

Newland’s legacy includes co-founding the governing Jamaica Labour Party (JLP).

The main building at the Ministry of Labour and Social Security at 1F North Street in Kingston will be named the Portia Simpson Miller Building.

Simpson Miller served as labour minister in both the Michael Manley government of 1989-1992 and the P.J. Patterson administration thereafter.

The National Insurance Building at National Heroes Circle will be named the Lynden Gladstone Newland Building.

The naming of the two buildings in honour of Simpson Miller and Newland during Workers Week is being done in recognition of their outstanding contribution to the labour movement for the rights and proper working conditions of the Jamaican worker. 

The start of Workers’ Week and Labour Day 2025 on May 18, coincides with the anniversary of the birthday of former prime minister the late Hugh Lawson Shearer, himself a stalwart of the labour movement. 

To this end, there will be a special floral tribute in his honour at the National Heroes Park at 3:00 pm, after the Workers’ Week and Labour Day Thanksgiving Service earlier that day at the Holiness Christian Church at Port Henderson Road, Portmore, which starts at 9:30 am.