Former PSA leaders criticize arrears negotiations, warn of cash shortfall

Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­[email protected]

Two for­mer pres­i­dents of the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) are open­ly crit­i­ciz­ing the Gov­ern­ment’s ar­rears ne­go­ti­a­tion process, ar­gu­ing that Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has not been ful­ly trans­par­ent with the pub­lic.

Jen­nifer Bap­tiste-Primus and Wat­son Duke, speak­ing sep­a­rate­ly to Guardian Me­dia, ex­pressed con­cern that PSA pres­i­dent Fe­l­isha Thomas may not be in the strongest po­si­tion to de­fend work­ers’ in­ter­ests, warn­ing that pub­lic of­fi­cers are be­ing steered to­ward a set­tle­ment heav­i­ly weight­ed in non-cash com­po­nents.

Bap­tiste-Primus di­rect­ly chal­lenged the Prime Min­is­ter’s claim that the Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer (CPO) op­er­ates in­de­pen­dent­ly.

“The Prime Min­is­ter is fool­ing no one,” she said. “The CPO takes in­struc­tions from the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance, and the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance takes in­struc­tions from his Cab­i­net or the Prime Min­is­ter.”

She de­scribed the Gov­ern­ment’s an­nounce­ment of a “cash ad­vance” on ar­rears as shroud­ed in se­cre­cy.

“No one knows the quan­tum,” Bap­tiste-Primus stressed. “Nei­ther the PSA pres­i­dent, nor the CPO, nor the Gov­ern­ment has said any­thing. The quan­tum re­mains a mys­tery. This ought to be very un­set­tling for pub­lic of­fi­cers.”

The for­mer PSA pres­i­dent al­so warned that Thomas may be com­pro­mised due to po­lit­i­cal ties.

“This is un­like any­thing I ever ne­go­ti­at­ed,” Bap­tiste-Primus said. “Strange and con­fus­ing. This is what hap­pens when a trade union sits down with gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials and po­lit­i­cal agree­ments emerge around the ta­ble.”

She al­leged a past po­lit­i­cal deal be­tween Thomas and Per­sad-Bisses­sar from when the lat­ter was Op­po­si­tion Leader:

“I will give you your ten per cent, but you must sup­port me and get your mem­bers to vote for me. That agree­ment is now play­ing out in the of­fice of the CPO.”

Bap­tiste-Primus added that Thomas has been “re­ward­ed” with state board ap­point­ments, a pro­mo­tion at WASA, and a salary in­crease.

“Of course she is com­pro­mised,” she said. “Her mouth is too filled with food. She will not be in a po­si­tion to call out the Gov­ern­ment pub­licly.”

She warned that pub­lic of­fi­cers’ ex­pec­ta­tions may not align with the fi­nal out­come.

“What they ex­pect and what they will get will be two dif­fer­ent things, re­gret­tably,” she said.

Duke stress­es com­pro­mise

Wat­son Duke al­so raised con­cerns, though in a more mea­sured tone.

“The cur­rent pres­i­dent of the PSA, Ms Fe­l­isha Thomas, is say­ing the right things,” Duke said. “But some­times in ne­go­ti­a­tions, what one says and what one does may have to be di­a­met­ri­cal­ly op­posed.”

He not­ed that while mem­bers want cash, the Gov­ern­ment can­not is­sue bil­lions in cash in the cur­rent eco­nom­ic cli­mate.

“Cash be­comes king,” Duke said. “And to pay out bil­lions in cash will al­ways be some­thing the Gov­ern­ment ap­proach­es with great reser­va­tion.”

Duke al­so ref­er­enced Thomas’ po­lit­i­cal sup­port for the Gov­ern­ment:

“You can’t now come and act in a man­ner that is ul­tra-vires to good gov­er­nance,” he said. “There has to be com­pro­mise.”

On the Gov­ern­ment’s mes­sag­ing, Duke added:

“The end jus­ti­fies the means. You must sat­is­fy your mem­ber­ship but not ru­in the re­la­tion­ship you cre­at­ed with the Gov­ern­ment.”

Both for­mer PSA lead­ers sug­gest that ev­i­dence in­di­cates most ar­rears will not be paid in cash.

Bap­tiste-Primus said, “They will give a cash pay­ment in ad­vance and the rest prob­a­bly in bonds.”

Duke echoed this view: “You can’t spend cash like that. So there has to be some com­pro­mise.”

Bap­tiste-Primus crit­i­cised the lack of trans­paren­cy from both the PSA and the Gov­ern­ment.

“What per­cent­age of the to­tal ar­rears does the cash rep­re­sent? No­body knows,” she said. “The PSA pres­i­dent has said noth­ing. The CPO has said noth­ing. The Gov­ern­ment has said noth­ing. This is very un­set­tling. Ab­solute­ly un­set­tling.”

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo has main­tained that all pub­lic ser­vants are ex­pect­ed to re­ceive their back pay be­fore Christ­mas, a promise now be­ing met with grow­ing skep­ti­cism among work­ers.

Guardian Me­dia’s at­tempts to reach PSA pres­i­dent Fe­l­isha Thomas for com­ment were un­suc­cess­ful.