Lee Choo Liang 李秋良 (c. 1912–1940), President of the Singapore Wharf Workers' Mutual Help Association 星洲碼頭工友互助會
Lee Choo Liang 李秋良 (c. 1912 – 1940)
民國廿九年桂月初三日
星洲碼頭工友互助會正會長顯考李秋良之墓
一大房 孝男立石
President of the Singapore Wharf Workers' Mutual Help Association 星洲碼頭工友互助會正會長
Bukit Brown Cemetery, Block 4, Division 1, Tomb 758A
Summary: Lee Choo Liang 李秋良 (c. 1912 – 4 September 1940) was president of the Singapore Wharf Workers' Mutual Help Association 星洲碼頭工友互助會, the first union organised by the Chinese harbour coolies of Singapore, registered as a society in 1939. It was superseded after the war by the Singapore Harbour Labour Union of 7 Enggor Street, whose line runs through the 1956 Singapore Harbour Board Workers' Union into today's Singapore Port Workers' Union (SPWU), an NTUC affiliate. He died aged 28 and is buried at Bukit Brown Cemetery, Block 4 Division 1, Tomb 758A. His headstone records his ancestral home as Zhao'an 詔安, Fujian. This record transcribes and translates the inscription and reconstructs his life and the union's history from Singapore newspapers of 1939–1960.
Tomb Inscription 墓碑銘文
| 碑文 | Transcription / Meaning |
|---|---|
| 閩 詔 | Ancestral home (籍貫): Zhao'an 詔安 county, Fujian 福建. |
| 758 | Tomb number, painted on the stone by the cemetery (plot 758A in the register) |
| 星洲碼頭工友互助會正會長顯考李秋良之墓 | "Tomb of our late honoured father Lee Choo Liang, President of the Singapore Wharf Workers' Mutual Help Association" (see note on the union's name below) |
| 民國廿九年桂月初三日 | Republic year 29, 3rd day of the Osmanthus Month (8th lunar month) = 4 September 1940 |
| 一大房 孝男立石 | Stone erected by his filial son(s) of the first (eldest) branch of the family |
Notes on the inscription:
- On the union's name. 星洲碼頭工友互助會 translates as "Singapore Wharf Workers' Mutual Help Association"; it was registered in 1939 as a society, not a trade union, and the English press of the day gave it no fixed English name. It should not be confused with the post-war Singapore Harbour Labour Union (SHLU, Chinese 碼頭工友聯合會〔星洲〕) of 7 Enggor Street, a different organisation that superseded it after 1946; see the section "After 1940" below.
- The family or rather assocation members chose to have his presidency of the wharf workers' union cut into the stone above the usual 顯考, telling us that this was how they, and probably the union members who followed his coffin, wished him to be remembered. The association members probably don't know his son (if any) name
- 桂月, the Osmanthus Month, is the literary name for the 8th lunar month; the date works out to 4 September 1940, which agrees exactly with the newspaper report of his death.
- 一大房 ("first great branch") indicates that the son or sons who erected the stone belonged to the senior line of the family; no individual names are given, and no wife or daughter is recorded.
Burial Register 埋葬記錄
| Name | Lee Choo Liang 李秋良 |
| Age | 28 |
| Date of death | 4 September 1940 |
| Funeral | 5 September 1940, 1 p.m., from 55 Kallang Road |
| Location | Bukit Brown Blk 4, Division 1, Tomb 758A |
Short Biography 生平簡介
Lee Choo Liang 李秋良 was born around 1912, in the last year of the Qing or the first of the Republic, into a family whose roots lay in Zhao'an 詔安 county, Fujian. Nothing is yet known of his early life. By his mid-twenties he was one of the several thousand Chinese coolies who loaded and unloaded ships at the Singapore Harbour Board wharves at Tanjong Pagar and Keppel Harbour, a workforce organised in gangs under contractors, paid by the day, and with no collective voice of its own.
That changed in 1939. After a strike among the Harbour Board labourers in early 1939, in which arbitration had foundered because "the men were not organised", the Chinese coolies set about forming a union of their own, deliberately keeping it "confined to the Chinese labourers" and free of anything "that savours of politics", and sought the sanction of the Chinese Protectorate and the Registrar of Societies (Sunday Tribune, 26 Feb 1939). Singapore had as yet no Trade Unions Ordinance in force, so the body was registered as a society, a mutual-help association, rather than as a trade union. In April the Registrar approved the registration of the Singapore Wharf Workers' Mutual Help Association 星洲碼頭工友互助會, one of only two new Chinese societies approved in the Straits Settlements that month (星洲日報, 15 Apr 1939). On 23 May 1939 several hundred members gathered at the union premises for a National Spiritual Mobilisation oath-taking, fixed the inauguration for 4 June at the Nam Tin Restaurant 南天酒樓, and elected the first committee under president Goh Boon Lai 吳文來. Lee Choo Liang, then about 27, was elected one of the union's 評議員 (council members) at this first election (Nanyang Siang Pau, 24 May 1939).
The union was born into a fight. Within weeks of its founding the wharf coolies were in dispute with the labour contractors over pay and conditions; mediation by Lau Boh Tan 劉牡丹 and How Say Huan 侯西反 of the China Relief Fund Committee was at first rejected (Morning Tribune, 24 June 1939), and in July over a thousand workers formally asked How, Chan Kee Sin 曾紀辰 and Lau to arbitrate (南洋商報, 18 Jul 1939); the workers' eight demands were pared down to four (南洋商報, 1 Aug 1939); and on 23 August 1939, through the arbitration of How Say Huan and Chan Kee Sin 曾紀辰, a three-point settlement was signed by both sides (南洋商報, 24 Aug 1939). A second round of grievances was settled in January 1940 with a six-point agreement (南洋商報, 13 Jan 1940). These were among the earliest successful collective negotiations by Chinese dock labour in Singapore.
Lee Choo Liang rose quickly through this period. By May 1940, when the union was preparing its first anniversary celebration, he headed the list of seven members chosen as the organising committee for the anniversary meeting, held on 19 May 1940 at the Happy World stadium 快樂世界體育館 with the approval of the Secretary for Chinese Affairs (南洋商報, 14 May 1940). The report noted that the union, open to wharf workers of every dialect group, had grown "a thousand li a day" since its founding. By the time of his death a few months later he was its 正會長, president.
He did not hold the office for long. Lee Choo Liang fell ill and died on 4 September 1940 at his home at 55 Kallang Road 加冷律五十五號, aged only 28. His funeral left the house at 1 p.m. the next day, and the Nanyang Siang Pau reported that union members and relatives following the coffin numbered "not less than several hundred" (南洋商報, 6 Sep 1940). Fearing that the loss of its president would hamper its work, the union called a council meeting of factory and gang representatives for 10 September, at which, under the chairmanship of Tan Kow Moey 陳九妹, Hu Pi Lie 胡丕烈 was unanimously elected to fill the vacancy (南洋商報, 11 Sep 1940).
After 1940: from the Mutual Help Association to the Singapore Port Workers' Union
The years after Lee Choo Liang's death are the most confusing in the history of waterfront labour in Singapore, because several unions with similar names existed side by side, divided largely along ethnic and dialect lines. The sequence below is pieced together from the newspapers and from two academic studies of the Singapore Harbour Board (SHB) workforce (Curless, Historical Journal, 2017; McGill, JIOWS).
1. The Mutual Help Association after the war (1945–47). Lee Choo Liang's 碼頭工友互助會 survived the Japanese Occupation but not its reputation. In the radicalised port of 1946 it was seen as a body "dominated by the contractors", and when the Malayan Communist Party's General Labour Union led a three-week strike of some 7,000–10,000 dockworkers in October 1946, MCP agents vandalised the Mutual Help Association's headquarters as a rival (Curless 2017). It was still in existence in late 1947: one of its members, the chief mandore Tan Chiu Tin, is recorded offering $3,000 of the association's funds to the Chinese section of the Harbour Labour Union to resist the SHB's plan to abolish the contractor system (McGill). After that it disappears from the record; its members were absorbed into the new unions below.
2. Three unions, three communities (1946–55). The daily-paid SHB labour force now organised itself in three new unions: the SHB Employees' Union (Hokkien-majority), the Ship and Wharf Labour Union (Cantonese-majority, drawn from the former Cantonese Labour Syndicate) and the Singapore Harbour Labour Union (SHLU), Indian-majority but multi-ethnic, with Malay and Indonesian members and a Chinese section of its own (McGill; Malaya Tribune, 28 Apr 1948). A clerical body, the SHB Staff Association (SHBSA), registered on 18 October 1946 as the very first union under the 1940 Trade Unions Ordinance, stood apart from all three (Singapore Infopedia).
It is the SHLU that succeeded the Mutual Help Association as the union of the Chinese wharf coolies. Its premises were at 7 Enggor Street 英莪街七號, a short street off Anson Road a few minutes' walk from the Tanjong Pagar wharves, and a post-war directory of Singapore Chinese associations lists it there as the S'pore Harbour Labourers' Union 碼頭工友聯合會（星洲）, with an all-Chinese slate of officers: chairman 何亞宗, vice-chairman 王士通, treasurer 林貴漢, general affairs 何春水 (deputy 符國才) and publicity 陳萬 (deputy 張延在), evidently the union's Chinese section. In June 1947 its hon. secretary Chua Choon Sek announced that the "Singapore Harbour Board Labour Union" had been registered as a legal body, with an office at S.H.B. Cooly Lines No. 4, and that all cards and badges issued in 1946 were void (Straits Times, 4 Jun 1947); in August 1947 it was this union's representatives who were cheered when they called off a strike of Harbour Board employees (Straits Times, 26 Aug 1947).
When the SHB abolished the labour-contractor system in October 1947 and began employing dockworkers directly, the SHLU resisted and called short strikes in January and April 1948. On 28 April 1948, after a grenade attack on Chinese coolies leaving SHB Gate No. 5, the C.I.D. raided the union's Enggor Street premises at 5 a.m. (Malaya Tribune, 28 Apr 1948). The strike failed, the union collapsed, and a reconstituted SHLU without communist ties took its place (Curless 2017). By 1951, under its secretary N. A. K. Jothi, it was one of the three SHB labour unions rejecting the Board's graded wage scheme, the other two "both representing mostly Chinese daily-paid workers" (Singapore Standard, 7 Jun 1951).
3. The Singapore Harbour Board Workers' Union (1956). The Staff Association, transformed by its secretary Jamit Singh into a militant union, won a 67-day strike in 1955. In April 1956 Singh negotiated the merger of the SHBSA with four other port unions, the SHLU among them, into a 7,000-strong Singapore Harbour Board Workers' Union (SHBWU) (Curless 2017). It was in this merger that the separate unions of the Chinese, Indian and other wharf labourers were first brought under one roof.
4. One union for the port (1957–64). After a 1957 inquiry questioned the SHBWU's legitimacy, the SHBSA was designated the principal, and after 1959 the sole, union for all Harbour Board workers; the remaining port unions merged into it in 1960 (Curless 2017; McGill). In April 1960 the Registrar served the old SHB Labour Union with notice of intention to cancel its registration, closing the book on the Enggor Street union (Straits Times, 9 Apr 1960). The SHBSA's left-wing leaders were detained in Operation Coldstore in February 1963, and in 1964 the Singapore Harbour Board itself gave way to the Port of Singapore Authority (PSA).
5. The Singapore Port Workers' Union (1968– ). In 1968 the SHBSA was renamed the Singapore Port Workers' Union (SPWU), an affiliate of the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) (Singapore Infopedia). The SPWU dates its own history from the SHBSA's registration on 18 October 1946 and describes itself as Singapore's first registered trade union (SPWU; NTUC). Through the SHLU and the 1956 merger, however, it also carries the inheritance of the Chinese wharf coolies who first organised themselves in 1939, seven years before any trade union was registered in Singapore, and whose president lies in Bukit Brown.
| Period | Union(s) of the SHB wharf labourers |
|---|---|
| 1939–c. 1947 | 星洲碼頭工友互助會 Singapore Wharf Workers' Mutual Help Association (Lee Choo Liang president, d. 1940); registered as a society; contractor-aligned after the war |
| 1946–1956 | Singapore Harbour Labour Union (SHLU) 碼頭工友聯合會〔星洲〕, 7 Enggor Street, Indian-majority with Chinese section · SHB Employees' Union (Hokkien) · Ship and Wharf Labour Union (Cantonese) · SHB Staff Association (clerical, reg. 18 Oct 1946) |
| 1956–1960 | Singapore Harbour Board Workers' Union (SHBWU), merger of SHBSA with SHLU and three other port unions |
| 1960–1968 | SHB Staff Association (SHBSA) designated sole union for all port workers; SHB becomes Port of Singapore Authority 1964 |
| 1968–present | Singapore Port Workers' Union (SPWU), NTUC affiliate |
Lee Choo Liang's headstone is thus a small monument to a large story: the first stirrings of organised labour on Singapore's waterfront, led for a brief moment by a Zhao'an coolie who died before he turned thirty, and carried forward, through the Harbour Labour Union at Enggor Street, the Harbour Board Workers' Union and the Staff Association, into the Singapore Port Workers' Union of today.
If any descendants of Lee Choo Liang, or families with links to the Singapore Wharf Workers' Mutual Help Association, come across this entry, I would be glad to hear from them and to bring them to the tomb.
Newspaper Record 報章紀錄
A chronological summary of the press reports on Lee Choo Liang and his union. Each entry links to the digitised article on NewspaperSG (National Library Board).
| Date / Source | Summary |
|---|---|
| 26 Feb 1939 Sunday Tribune, p. 3 | Chinese Harbour Board workers announce plans to form a trade union, the first organised attempt among the wharf coolies. Read article |
| 15 Apr 1939 星洲日報, p. 9 / 南洋商報 | The Registrar approves the registration of the 星洲碼頭工友互助會, one of only two new Chinese societies approved in the Straits Settlements at the time (the other being the 新生勵志社 of Penang). 星洲日報 · 南洋商報 |
| 24 May 1939 南洋商報, p. 8 | Several hundred members attend a National Spiritual Mobilisation oath-taking at the union premises under chairman Goh Boon Lai 吳文來; inauguration fixed for 4 June at 南天酒樓. The first committee is elected: president 吳文來, vice-president 許清水, treasurer 高修善, and a council of 評議員 that includes Lee Choo Liang 李秋良. Read article |
| 24 Jun 1939 Morning Tribune, p. 2 | Proposals put forward by the mediators, Lau Boh Tan 劉牡丹 and How Say Huan 侯西反 of the China Relief Fund Committee, are rejected. Read article |
| 18 Jul 1939 南洋商報 | Over a thousand Chinese wharf workers, their demands refused by the employers, appeal to How Say Huan, Chan Kee Sin 曾紀辰 and Lau Boh Tan to mediate. Read article |
| 1 Aug 1939 南洋商報, p. 8 | The union pares the workers' eight demands down to four with the members' consent, ahead of talks with the employers; Indian wharf workers also seek better terms. Read article |
| 24 Aug 1939 南洋商報, p. 7 | Through the arbitration of How Say Huan and Chan Kee Sin, a three-point settlement improving the workers' terms is signed by both sides; the two mediators urge closer labour–management cooperation. Read article |
| 13 Jan 1940 南洋商報, p. 8 | A second round of grievances over living conditions is settled with a six-point agreement. Read article |
| 14 May 1940 南洋商報, p. 9 | With the union's first anniversary approaching and membership growing "a thousand li a day", Lee Choo Liang heads the seven-man committee (with 陳亞桂, 張依奴, 王振立, 陳九妹 and others) organising the anniversary meeting at Happy World stadium on 19 May, approved by the Secretary for Chinese Affairs. Read article |
| 6 Sep 1940 南洋商報, p. 9 | Union president Lee Choo Liang dies of illness at his residence, 55 Kallang Road, on 4 September; his funeral leaves at 1 p.m. on 5 September, followed by several hundred union members and relatives. The union calls a meeting of representatives for 10 September to elect a new president. Read article |
| 11 Sep 1940 南洋商報 | At a council meeting of several dozen gang representatives chaired by Tan Kow Moey 陳九妹, Hu Pi Lie 胡丕烈 is unanimously elected president to fill the vacancy left by Lee Choo Liang. Read article |
| 23 Dec 1940 南洋商報 | The union holds elections for its third committee. Read article |
| 6 May 1946 Straits Times, p. 1 | Post-war harbour strike ends in settlement. See issue |
| 14 May 1947 Straits Times, p. 5 | Sixty-three unions are registered under the new Trade Unions Ordinance; the Singapore Harbour Board Labour Union is among them. Read article |
| c. 1947 Directory of Chinese associations | 碼頭工友聯合會（星洲）/ S'pore Wharf Workers' Mutual Help Association, 7 Enggor Street 英莪街七號. Officers: 主任 何亞宗, 副 王士通, 財政 林貴漢, 總務 何春水, 副 符國才, 宣傳 陳萬, 副 張延在. The Chinese section of the post-war Singapore Harbour Labour Union, successor to the Mutual Help Association. (Clipping in the S.T.E.M. collection.) |
| 4 Jun 1947 Straits Times, p. 2 | Notice by Hon. Secretary Chua Choon Sek: the Singapore Harbour Board Labour Union, S.H.B. Cooly Lines No. 4, has been registered as a legal body and accepts members from 26 May 1947; all cards and badges issued by the union in 1946 are declared void. Read notice |
| 5 Jun 1947 Straits Budget, p. 19 | One hundred Singapore unions now registered. Read article |
| 26 Aug 1947 Straits Times, p. 1 | Striking Harbour Board employees vote to return to work after Harbour Labour Union representatives call for an end to the strike. See issue |
| 28 Apr 1948 Malaya Tribune | After a grenade attack on Chinese coolies leaving S.H.B. Gate No. 5, the C.I.D. raids the Singapore Harbour Labour Union premises at Enggor Street at 5 a.m. Read article |
| 7 Jun 1951 Singapore Standard, p. 1 | The Singapore Harbour Board Labour Union (secretary N. A. K. Jothi) is the first of three unions to reject the Board's "graded revision of wages", insisting on equal rates for all labourers doing the same work. Read article |
| 13 Sep 1951 南洋商報, p. 6 | Eighteen unions host a farewell dinner for the departing Trade Union Adviser. Read article |
| 9 Apr 1960 Straits Times, p. 2 | Seven more unions struck off; the Singapore Harbour Board Labour Union (the Enggor Street union) is listed among those served with notice of the Registrar's intention to cancel registration. Read article |
Sources 資料來源
- Headstone inscription, Bukit Brown Blk 4 Div 1 Tomb 758A (field transcription and photograph).
- Newspaper reports 1939–1960 as listed and linked in the Newspaper Record table above (NewspaperSG, National Library Board, Singapore).
- Post-war directory of Singapore Chinese associations, entry for 碼頭工友聯合會（星洲）S'pore Wharf Workers' Mutual Help Association, 7 Enggor Street (clipping, S.T.E.M. collection).
- Gareth Curless, "The Triumph of the State: Singapore's Dockworkers and the Limits of Global History, c. 1920–1965", The Historical Journal 60:4 (2017). Cambridge Core
- "Owned Them Like a Father": labour contractors and dockworkers at the Singapore Harbour Board, Journal of Indian Ocean World Studies. McGill University
- "Singapore Harbour Board Staff Association", Singapore Infopedia, National Library Board. NLB
- Singapore Port Workers' Union, "About us". spwu.org.sg
- Lunar–Gregorian conversion of 民國廿九年桂月初三 (8th lunar month, 3rd day, 1940) = 4 September 1940.
About this record : This entry is part of the Singapore Tombstones Epigraphic Materials (S.T.E.M.) 新加坡墓碑銘集录, a specialised digital documentation project and archive recording historical tomb inscriptions in Singapore, with a focus on Bukit Brown Cemetery 武吉布朗坟场 (Kopi Sua 咖啡山) and other early Chinese burial grounds. Each record transcribes the original Chinese inscription, gives an English translation, cross-checks it against the burial register, and adds a short biography drawn from contemporary newspapers and archival sources.
Cite this entry as:
Raymond Goh. "Lee Choo Liang 李秋良." Singapore Tombstones Epigraphic Materials (S.T.E.M.), tombs.bukitbrown.org, https://tombs.bukitbrown.org/2020/05/blog-post_0.html. Accessed [date].
Keywords: Lee Choo Liang, 李秋良, Bukit Brown Cemetery, 武吉布朗, Singapore Wharf Workers' Mutual Help Association, 星洲碼頭工友互助會, Singapore Harbour Labour Union SHLU, 碼頭工友聯合會, 7 Enggor Street 英莪街, Singapore Harbour Board Workers' Union SHBWU, Singapore Harbour Board Staff Association SHBSA, Singapore Port Workers' Union SPWU, NTUC, Singapore trade union history 1939, Zhao'an 詔安, Chinese tomb inscriptions Singapore, Singapore Tombstones Epigraphic Materials, S.T.E.M.
Comments
Post a Comment