PSA plans national shutdown on Jan. 4, calls on all unions to support workers' struggle

More than 30,000 public service workers in Trinidad and Tobago remain in the dark about improved wages and working conditions because negotiations between the Public Services Association (PSA) and the Chief Personnel Officer, Stephanie Lewis, have so fair failed to resolve the issues.

PSA president Watson Duke confirmed to reporters on Tuesday that Lewis is standing firm on her offer of a five per cent pay increase over three years. And he said he has suggested to PSA members that they work reduced hours in the days prior to a planned national shutdown on January 4.

“When you make half-day you already worked for your money, you don’t have to work a single hour more. You going to work whole day for what? They cannot keep workers in bondage,” Duke said.

The PSA boss also called on other trade unions to join the PSA's struggle. “We have written to all the trade union leaders and I am putting all of them on the spot now," he said.

"It is not good enough to talk and just say solidarity forever, we have to practice solidarity forever. The PSA will be taking no prisoners on January 4, we expect all trade unions to come out and stand in support of the 33,000 public officers,” he said.

“Any trade unionist that comes to that march alone on January 4, or does not show support, will be ostracised. We do not need dead weights. If you are a trade unionist, stay on workers’ business and leave the politics out, time to put workers in front,” Duke declared.

The letter to the other unions says “public servants have been paying for the wild spending and the greed of successive Governments and special interest groups from the ’80s to present...(the union is) no longer willing to continue paying for such”.

The National Trade Union Centre (Natuc) has confirmed its support for the PSA and is calling on all trade unions to “give tangible support to the PSA in its ongoing struggle for a fair and just wage”.