Originally called the Barbados Progressive League until 1944, the party was founded on 31 March 1938 at the home of James Martineau. During the first meeting, Chrissie Brathwaite and Grantley Adams were elected as Chairman and Vice-Chairman. Adams had entered the House of Assembly in 1934 partly through his deconstruction of the labour-focused efforts of the Charles Duncan O’Neal’s Democratic League, but this new party turned to organizing the political movement brought on by the unrest of 1937 that he had earlier opposed. As such, their objectives included many of the League’s original goals, such as adult suffrage, free education, and better housing and health care. The BLP first participated in general elections in 1940. In 1994Owen Arthur became the Prime Minister as leader of the Barbados Labour Party. In the 2003 elections the BLP won 23 out of the 30 seats. The number increased to 24 in 2006, when in an almost unprecedented development the leader of the opposition, after a bitter and tumultuous internal battle within his own party, resigned the post and joined the governing party. The Barbados Labour Party governed from 1994 to 2008, which was commonly called the "Owen Arthur Administration". Prime Minister Arthur was chosen from among leaders around the globe to deliver the William Wilberforce lecture on the 200th Anniversary of the Abolition of the Atlantic Slave Trade Act. The party lost power in the 2008 general election, winning 10 seats against 20 for the Democratic Labour Party. After the election, Arthur stepped down as BLP leader and was replaced by former Deputy Prime MinisterMia Mottley in a leadership election against Attorney-General of Barbados, Dale Marshall. Mottley also became Opposition Leader. In the summer of 2008 Hamilton Lashley, MP for St. Michael South East, resigned from the party to become an Independent candidate in the House of Assembly. He was thereafter given a job by the DLP, the party he had belonged before crossing the floor to the BLP, as a consultant on poverty. This move by the member reduced to nine the number of seats the Barbados Labour Party had in the House.
The women's branch of the Barbados Labour Party is called the Women's League. The youth branch is called the League of Young Socialists.
Social outreach
The BLP uses several forms of Internet mediums to reach out to new and existing supporters. This includes: Google+, Facebook, and Twitter feeds. Many live meetings of the party are streamed live via UStream or YouTube. A "Labour" political party is an amalgam of various trade unions and socialist groups, generally supporting the interests of organized labour and advocating democratic socialism and social equality, bringing together an alliance of social democratic, democratic socialist and trade unionist outlooks. Considered a left-of-centre political party formed to represent the interests of ordinary working people, in particular arising from the trade union movement at the end of the 19th century to replaced the Liberal, Democrat or Conservative political positions.
