Public Service takes a "rest day" Monday: UNC backs plan

After two weeks of lunchtime protests staff of the Trinidad and Tobago Board of Inland Revenue (BIR) and the Customs and excise Division are taking a rest.

Their union, the Public services Association (PSA) has declared Monday, March 1, 2010 as a "rest day".

The aim is to demonstrate that the system cannot function without the workers, who are demanding job and income security.

The protest is over the new Trinidad and Tobago Revenue Authority (TTRA) which will replace both the BIR and Customs and excise Division.

The plan is to hand each member of the staff of the existing agencies a separation package with no guarantees that they would find permanent work in the new authority.

The separation package is valued at around $350 million but the PSA has not yet signed off on that with the Chief Personnel Officer (CPO).

The bill establishing the TTRA has already passed in the House of Representatives, despite strong opposition to it. And it is likely to pass in the Senate as well since the government has a majority there.

Workers affected by the closure of the two divisions had hoped for the options of either voluntarily retirement from the public service on mutually acceptable terms or getting transfers so they could continue to work in the public service.

But Cabinet has decided that only the separation package should be offered, which the PSA says is contrary to a 2002 plan in which the cabinet agreed that BIR and customs workers "with the exception of legal officers" should become "employees of the Authority to facilitate a seamless transition."

The workers' protest, which started under former PSA President Jennifer Baptiste-Primus, is continuing under the new PSA executive led by Watson Duke.

And Duke is getting support from the opposition UNC, which has appointed a PSA representative as a temporary Senator to deal with the bill in the Upper House.

The UNC has also agreed to let its staff join the PSA in its "rest day" Monday.

In a media release Sunday, UNC leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar said, "I am convinced that we need to express our solidarity with the labour unions on March 1, 2010 and consequently I have recommended to all our Opposition Members of Parliament that we support this initiative, by affording our staff a day of rest as well."

The decision means the Office of the Leader of the Opposition in Port of Spain, and the Office of the MP for Siparia in Penal and the Head Office of the United National Congress at Rienzi Complex, Couva will be closed on Monday.