Media reports say 10 supporters attended the event which organiser Wouldron Le Louison called a symbolic gesture on behalf of 33,000 public officers who want to send a "very strong signal to Mr Duke that he must demit office.”
However acting PSA president Christopher Joefield has defended Duke, saying Duke was “mandated to engage in informal talks with the employer aimed at arriving at a settlement.”
In a media statement Joefield said: “The executive and general council developed a minimum acceptable position, which it hoped, could be achieved through these informal discussions.”
Joefield explained that when the matter was referred to a Special Tribunal, the negotiations between the chief personnel officer and the PSA ended. That meant that the PSA could no longer take any action or present any public argument on the salaries and COLA.
“The court’s intervention meant that the minimum period of the court’s settlement would be at least five years ie 2008-2012,” he said. “This also meant that the PSA was precluded, at a minimum from negotiating salaries and COLA for 2011 and 2012.”
Joefield added, “Whatever the court settlement, the public servant interests may have been imperilled,” Joefield said. “This is to say, even if the court had awarded one or two per cent more than the employer’s position it would have been for over five years.
“Moreover, whatsoever backpay derived from the court settlement would represent a severely reduced purchasing power due to inflation over the years of waiting.”
He said against this background the executive had only one decision to make - to act in the interest of members. Joefield the PSA's general council directed all the President's move.
He said former PSA president Jennifer Baptiste-Primus and James Lambert, president of the National Union of Government and Federated Workers have no "moral authority” to comment on the matter.
Joefield said, “Truly, labour has not found its own politics and the public comments of its leaders have proven it."
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