[2] Jamaican Prime Minister Bruce Golding has called Bustamante "an icon of political struggles" in Jamaica's march towards independence.
Upon her return to Kingston, she began working as a cashier at a restaurant called Arlington House, which had become an important meeting place for members of the Jamaican colonial legislative assembly from rural areas of the island.
[5] Bustamante later described the role of women in the Jamaican trade union movement in her memoir, "We women were the mainstay of the union's organisation, though we could hardly have functioned without the brave men who toiled day and night, facing all sorts of criticism and opposition as they tried to help the workers.
"[3] She also played a prominent role in the founding of the Jamaica Labour Party by Alexander Bustamante in July 1943.
[4] Jamaican political and union life during the late colonial and post-independence eras centered largely on the rivalry between Bustamante and Norman Manley.
[2] Gladys Longbridge married Sir Alexander Bustamante on 7 September 1962, shortly after Jamaica achieved independence from the United Kingdom in August 1962.
[2] Bustamante remained the first Prime Minister of Jamaica until his resignation in 1967 due to ill health.
[2] Gladys, Lady Bustamante, cared for her husband at their home, which was called Bellencita, for the remainder of his life.
She worked to improve the standard of living for workers in Jamaica's shipping ports and sugarcane communities.
[1] The government of Venezuela bestowed Mrs. Bustamante with the Orchid Award in 1979 in recognition of her husband's career.
[3] The Jamaican government further awarded Bustamante the Plaque for Outstanding Public Service to Jamaica in 1986 to mark the end of the United Nations Decade for Women (1976–1986).
However, Bustamante died at approximately 4:40 pm on 25 July 2009, at the Tony Thwaites Wing of the University Hospital of the West Indies in Kingston, Jamaica.