ABSTRACT
The conflicts which developed within the cooperatives were in no small measure due to economic factors. Cooperativization in Jamaica was rooted in deeply felt political needs to implement a new system of economic and social justice. Sugar workers, along with banana workers and other unskilled agricultural laborers, were traditionally among the most exploited and downtrodden of all Jamaicans. As late as 1974, for example, conditions in Vere reflected the pattern of severe social and economic malaise. The Manley government was of course aware of this socioeconomic situation when it came into office in 1972. From the beginning economic outcomes for sugar workers figured prominently in the development of a cooper-ativization policy. The interministerial planning comittee which produced the original proposal for the development of the government's cane lands at Frome, Mony-musk and Bernard Lodge dealt explicitly with the question of increasing economic returns for sugar workers.
