PSA stands firm

Akash Sama­roo

akash.sama­[email protected]

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

De­spite Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dave Tan­coo’s con­fir­ma­tion that the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) may have to ac­cept non-cash pay­ments for the re­main­der of their back­pay, union pres­i­dent Fe­l­isha Thomas is stand­ing firm, in­sist­ing that pub­lic ser­vants will on­ly ac­cept cash.

Mean­while, for­mer PSA head Wat­son Duke says he sup­ports Thomas’ hard­line stance but is re­mind­ing her that Tan­coo nev­er promised the en­tire $3.8 bil­lion in back­pay would be paid in cash.

De­spite shak­ing hands on a deal in the wee hours of Tues­day, both Thomas and CPO Dr Daryl Din­di­al are at log­ger­heads again, this time on how the back­pay will be dis­bursed.

While Thomas is adamant the back­pay for her 25,000 mem­bers must be cash on­ly, Din­di­al main­tains non-cash items must form part of the pay­out. Din­di­al said this de­ci­sion re­flects Min­is­ter Tan­coo’s di­rec­tives.

On Wednes­day, Guardian Me­dia point­ed­ly asked Tan­coo to con­firm if the ad­vanced pay­ment of ar­rears promised on or be­fore De­cem­ber 23 will be in cash and if the PSA may need to en­ter­tain non-cash pay­ments for the rest of the back­pay.

Tan­coo re­spond­ed, “Con­firmed.”

Yes­ter­day, Guardian Me­dia re­vealed the min­is­ter’s re­sponse to Thomas but her po­si­tion re­mained un­changed.

“My re­sponse re­mains the same. I was asked over the ta­ble and I was very clear that my man­date for my mem­bers is cash. And that re­mains the same,” Thomas said.

She added, “I rep­re­sent a mem­ber­ship. And the man­date I car­ry is that of my mem­ber­ship.”

Thomas stressed that her re­fusal to ac­cept non-cash op­tions wasn’t aimed per­son­al­ly at the Fi­nance Min­is­ter, but at any­one propos­ing al­ter­na­tives to full cash pay­ments dur­ing the ne­go­ti­a­tions.

Asked if a non-cash op­tion was ever dis­cussed be­tween her­self and the Fi­nance Min­is­ter di­rect­ly, Thomas re­spond­ed, “It was raised over the ta­ble with the CPO. And my re­sponse was my man­date for my mem­bers is cash.”

Guardian Me­dia then asked Thomas if she was sur­prised when she was told the en­tire back­pay may not be dis­bursed in cash.

“I’m not sur­prised by any­thing. But I work on my man­date for my mem­ber­ship. That’s my pri­or­i­ty.”

Thomas al­so said she has not had any con­ver­sa­tion with the Fi­nance Min­is­ter.

“And let me tell you why I haven’t. I haven’t be­cause ne­go­ti­a­tions are on­go­ing. We are over the hur­dle of ten per cent. Ten per cent is guar­an­teed to the mem­ber­ship. We have signed that up. In Jan­u­ary, we will con­tin­ue dis­cus­sions in re­la­tion to holds and oth­er items that are to be set­tled. There are some al­lowances and some oth­er items still on the ta­ble for dis­cus­sion. And we will en­gage that dis­cus­sion then.”

The PSA pres­i­dent al­so said the union has not been in­formed of what oth­er forms of com­pen­sa­tion could be.

The CPO yes­ter­day de­clined to com­ment on what the non-cash op­tions were for the union.

Al­so con­tact­ed on the is­sue, Fi­nance Min­is­ter Tan­coo al­so did not wish to dis­close any fur­ther in­for­ma­tion.

How­ev­er, Guardian Me­dia was re­li­ably in­formed that the last time a “non-cash” of­fer was made to trade unions was in 1996.

Ac­cord­ing to the le­gal no­tice then, which Guardian Me­dia ac­quired, these forms of com­pen­sa­tion in­clud­ed the off­set­ting of ar­rears of in­come tax owed to the Board of In­land Rev­enue (BIR), as well as amounts due to the Na­tion­al Hous­ing Au­thor­i­ty (now Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion) for ar­rears or cur­rent pay­ments on mort­gages and rentals, re­duc­tion of mort­gage loan prin­ci­pal, or the pur­chase or lease of land. They may al­so be ap­plied to­ward the re­pay­ment of over­paid sums, the pur­chase or rental of Gov­ern­ment quar­ters, and the re­pay­ment of loans such as De­val­u­a­tion loans, Stu­dents’ Re­volv­ing Loan Fund loans, and fi­nal-year stu­dent loans. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, they can be used to set­tle de­fault­ed Cess loans, amounts owed to the gov­ern­ment by pub­lic sec­tor em­ploy­ees and stu­dents who have de­fault­ed on schol­ar­ship or train­ing oblig­a­tions, and loans for the pur­chase of mo­tor ve­hi­cles.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands “off­set­ting” means the debt is can­celled out, while “re­pay­ment” means pay­ing off the work­er’s loans us­ing part of their owed ar­rears. There have been some re­ports that gov­ern­ment-is­sued bonds could al­so be an op­tion. A gov­ern­ment-is­sued bond acts as an “IOU,” al­low­ing the state to de­lay cash re­pay­ment by giv­ing cred­i­tors a trad­able se­cu­ri­ty that promis­es re­pay­ment with in­ter­est at a set ma­tu­ri­ty date.

Mean­while, for­mer PSA pres­i­dent Wat­son Duke said he ful­ly sup­ports Thomas’ “cash on­ly” po­si­tion.

“The pres­i­dent of the PSA is quite right in stand­ing square­ly be­hind the mem­ber­ship ask­ing for cash on­ly. It is some­thing that I will do my­self.”

How­ev­er, he said Thomas must al­so un­der­stand clear­ly what Tan­coo com­mu­ni­cat­ed to the pub­lic when he said he had the mon­ey for the back­pay.

“He nev­er said if he had the mon­ey in cash or if he had the mon­ey in bonds and when he will pay the mon­ey. That, or her in­ter­pre­ta­tion of his state­ments, or the av­er­age man’s in­ter­pre­ta­tion of his state­ments, would mean that he has the mon­ey to pay right away, but not so. In run­ning a coun­try, one has to be very care­ful how they dis­pense with cash be­cause cash is al­ways king.”

And while Thomas con­tin­ues to call the CPO “ob­struc­tion­ist”, Duke said she needs to un­der­stand that the CPO is not op­er­at­ing by him­self but with guide­lines from the Fi­nance Min­istry.