PSA to begin "quiet riot" to agitate for better pay

(Watson Duke leads a PSA protest against the proposed TT Revenue Authority earlier this year)

One issue that Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar would have to address as soon as he gets back to her desk in Port of Spain in growing discontent among public service workers for higher pay.

The President of the Public Services Association (PSA) has asked the association's members to begin a “quiet riot” Monday to lobby for higher wages.

Watson Duke told local media the action has become necessary because the country's Chief Personnel Officer (CPO) has failed to respond to the PSA proposals that were sent more than a month ago.

As a result Duke is asking PSA members to resume their daily lunchtime walk around the Financial Towers in Port-of-Spain.

They took similar action to protest the Manning administration's plans to create a new Trinidad and Tobago Revenue Authority. The new government scrapped that plan. Duke told reporters the protest is a "polite" reminder to the new government of what PSA members need. He explained that there will be no rowdy placard-bearing marches.

One of his concerns that contract workers are paid more than permanent workers. He wants then government to stop that. “How can a clerical officer on contract earn $6,000, while a permanent clerk gets $3,700. A computer technician is paid by the Service Commission, $8,000 while the hired contractor is paid $16,000, a director is paid $15,000 while a director employed side by side over $22,000.

"The billions they spend on contract workers, let them spend it on us,” he told the Newsday newspaper.
Duke has instructed all public officers to use Budget Day as an occasion to demonstrate their concerns. “Let us get around the Red House and make a lap, let us send a strong signal that you are not comfortable until your needs are taken into account...

"Each of you who have families with children under 18 must be covered by a health plan and the death benefit which is $20,000 right now, must be improved. It must ensure that families would not lose their financial footing when they lose someone, so the benefit should be $100,000,” he said.