January 3, 2010
The news of Tim’s death reached me when I was sorting out my computers after a three-month absence. I recall sending a short note of condolence to Jeremy and Brendan but cannot now find it. Tim has continued to be on my mind with the passage of time and I have followed the obits and condolences on the blog. I particularly appreciated Jeremy’s biographical piece since, although I once stayed for a week or so with Tim and Sus in Boston, and although I heard something of his remarkable life and travels, I clearly never learned the half of it.
No one who met Tim could fail to be enchanted by this laid-back and generous personality. Nor by his hard work, mostly in the backrooms of the labour movement. But neither was I able to separate his own contribution to the jointly-authored books and the jointly-promoted Global Labor Strategies project. This was a guy without an ego. Or without an ego that he felt needed promoting.
Tim was also a natural-born internationalist. Or a man who became one through his European experience and wide travels.
I regret that in the past decade I only met up with Tim at World Social Forums and then always too briefly. I think we last met at the Belem forum. I am not entirely sure about this since I was apparently myself ill, being later operated on in Rio. Although, when we met, I must have mentioned my own past brush with cancer, he did not mention his own condition. I regret this since I profoundly value the concern and solidarity others have offered to me. But – like another friend of mine threatened by cancer – I respect his reasons for keeping quiet about this.
The response to Tim’s death revealed on the GLS blog convinces me that there will be a publication, or publications, devoted to his memory, or – perhaps one should say – inspired by his life. I would welcome the opportunity of contributing to such.
I also would like to hope it is possible to set up a foundation or prize in his name. Given his own contribution to this, I would love to see the one or the other devoted to labour and social movement internationalism. An annual award for an internationalist campaign or publication could be an appropriate way of commemorating this unforgettable comrade and friend.
Peter Waterman
Global Labour Charter Project
The Hague