PSA calls for WASA HR director’s head amid wage impasse

DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­[email protected]

Pres­sure con­tin­ued to mount at the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) yes­ter­day, af­ter the Pub­lic Ser­vices’ As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) called for the re­moval of act­ing hu­man re­source di­rec­tor Bun­ny Ramb­ha­jan amid a wage ne­go­ti­a­tion im­passe.

The dis­pute es­ca­lat­ed af­ter talks be­tween the union and WASA man­age­ment, which be­gan at 11.30 am on Thurs­day, broke down around mid­night. Work­ers re­mained at the au­thor­i­ty’s com­pound in­to yes­ter­day, af­ter Ramb­ha­jan and her team left the ne­go­ti­a­tions and did not re­turn.

PSA pres­i­dent Fe­l­isha Thomas said work­ers were frus­trat­ed over the fail­ure to ad­vance wage pro­pos­als sub­mit­ted in Jan­u­ary, in­clud­ing pro­vi­sions linked to the Gov­ern­ment’s promised 10 per cent salary in­crease.

The union sub­se­quent­ly blocked the en­trance to WASA’s St Joseph head of­fice, with mem­bers chant­i­ng for Ramb­ha­jan’s re­moval.

“The work­ers are frus­trat­ed. They are fed up. Every oth­er or­gan­i­sa­tion, their pro­pos­als have been sub­mit­ted and ad­vanced to the var­i­ous min­istries, with the ex­cep­tion of WASA. The man­age­ment, and let me specif­i­cal­ly say the di­rec­tor of HR, has failed the work­ers of WASA. And now we are call­ing for her re­moval,” Thomas said.

Thomas ac­cused Ramb­ha­jan and man­age­ment of fail­ing to ad­vance the pro­pos­als to WASA’s hu­man re­source com­mit­tee. She said the union al­so sought an­swers on the fi­nan­cial im­pli­ca­tions of set­tling the ne­go­ti­a­tions, in­clud­ing out­stand­ing ar­rears and the im­pact of the pro­posed salary in­creas­es on the util­i­ty’s re­cur­rent ex­pen­di­ture.

Thomas said she could not ex­plain why man­age­ment walked out of the ne­go­ti­a­tions but be­lieved of­fi­cials were un­able to an­swer ques­tions raised by the union.

The PSA is de­mand­ing that the pro­pos­als be im­me­di­ate­ly sub­mit­ted to the Min­istry of Pub­lic Util­i­ties so the ne­go­ti­a­tions can be con­clud­ed.

Thomas said WASA’s board had re­mained silent on the im­passe, al­though the au­thor­i­ty’s chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer Dain Ma­haraj had con­tact­ed the union in an at­tempt to re­solve the dis­pute.

She again warned that work­ers would not let up un­til the board in­ter­vened.

“It will not be work as usu­al in WASA un­til the board has ad­dressed the sit­u­a­tion that is tak­ing place here. They are not be­ing paid a stipend to be on our board for fun. This is se­ri­ous work, and they need to come and deal with the is­sue. WASA is in a cri­sis, they need to come and treat with the cri­sis. It will not get bet­ter, it will on­ly get worse,” she said.

Thomas said de­lays in set­tling the WASA ne­go­ti­a­tions could al­so af­fect whether the costs are re­flect­ed in Gov­ern­ment’s bud­getary pro­vi­sions.

Re­spond­ing to news about the im­passe, Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath said he had re­quest­ed in­for­ma­tion from WASA.

“I have re­quest­ed a re­port from WASA with re­spect to the sta­tus of the wage ne­go­ti­a­tions, as well as the con­cerns that have been raised by the pres­i­dent of the PSA. We con­tin­ue to have open frank di­a­logue with the union in good faith, and there­fore much more will be said at the ap­pro­pri­ate time,” Padarath said.

Padarath did not in­di­cate whether ac­tion would be tak­en against Ramb­ha­jan, or whether Gov­ern­ment would in­ter­vene di­rect­ly in the dis­pute.

Mean­while, for­mer pub­lic util­i­ties min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les yes­ter­day crit­i­cised both Gov­ern­ment and the PSA over the stale­mate. He said the ne­go­ti­a­tions should not have reached this stage if the Gov­ern­ment in­tend­ed to ho­n­our its elec­tion cam­paign promise.

“It is lu­di­crous, be­cause what are you ne­go­ti­at­ing? There’s no need to ne­go­ti­ate be­cause you promised 10%,” Gon­za­les said.

He ar­gued that WASA’s board and man­age­ment, hav­ing been ap­point­ed by the cur­rent Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress ad­min­is­tra­tion, should al­ready have re­ceived in­struc­tions from the line min­is­ter to sub­mit the nec­es­sary doc­u­men­ta­tion to fa­cil­i­tate the in­crease.

Gon­za­les al­so crit­i­cised Thomas for di­rect­ing her con­cerns at WASA’s man­age­ment and board rather than the Gov­ern­ment.

“Un­for­tu­nate­ly, I don’t like to crit­i­cise union lead­ers, but in this case, I am forced to do it, be­cause I not­ed she is not tak­ing is­sue with the Gov­ern­ment on it. She’s tak­ing is­sue with the man­age­ment and the board of WASA. But who placed the man­age­ment and the board of WASA? Who put them in place?”

He said Gov­ern­ment could re­move the board and man­age­ment if it dis­agreed with how the ne­go­ti­a­tions were be­ing han­dled, ar­gu­ing their con­tin­ued tenure sug­gest­ed they were act­ing in ac­cor­dance with Gov­ern­ment di­rec­tive.

Gon­za­les al­so ques­tioned Thomas’ in­de­pen­dence as a union leader, point­ing to her ser­vice on sev­er­al boards ap­point­ed by Gov­ern­ment.

He de­scribed her as “com­pro­mised” and ques­tioned whether she could fair­ly rep­re­sent WASA work­ers.

Gon­za­les fur­ther warned work­ers against what he de­scribed as po­lit­i­cal ma­nip­u­la­tion.

“You were mis­led by false promis­es in re­turn for your votes. Do not al­low them to mis­lead you and to use you again.”

Padarath and Gon­za­les lat­er con­tin­ued their ver­bal dis­pute via so­cial me­dia.

Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed WASA’s CEO and Thomas for an up­date on the ne­go­ti­a­tions, but nei­ther re­spond­ed up to press time.