Robinson Ron

Ron Robinson

Born in 1932, Robinson was a member of the Jersey Communist Party during the 1950s and 1960s.

 

He was a plasterer and member of the Transport & General Workers Union. As the Channel Islands’ delegate to the Communist Party’s 27th National Congress in London in 1961, he revealed in a speech to congress that: “In 1953  building trade workers in the `tourist paradise’ of Jersey had no guaranteed week, paid annual holidays or Bank Holidays and the hourly rate of skilled workers was 2s 10d. Four years later, with Communists sitting on the island's building trade joint negotiating committee, workers had secured a 34 hour guaranteed week, two weeks holiday and 11 bank holidays paid for and the hourly rate pushed up to 4s 10d.”

Robinson was especially noted for his organisation of sales of the Daily Worker on a Saturday night pitch at Snow Hill, which was for a very long time the central meeting point for all transport in the island, mainly by then being a bus station but cable cars, taxis and private cars also made this an important junction.  There, the Daily Worker poster board drew attention to a team of sellers. 

 

Michael Walker

Sources include: Daily Worker 3rd April 1961