PSA plans carnival style protest in Port of Spain

File Photo: PSA protest in Port of Spain last year

The Public Services Association (PSA) is planning what it says will be a "massive, massive" protest Tuesday at which it expects 25,000.

PSA president Watson Duke told local media the PSA has permission for the event which will include music trucks. The carnival like demonstration is to protest the Government’s five per cent wage offer to public employees.

“We want to make our disenchantment known,” he said, adding that those unions who do not show solidarity and join the PSA protest “will be reprimanded.”

Duke said the six-hour march through the streets of the capital will begin at one in the afternoon. “We are coming out with a renewed approach, renewed fight and we intend to do things differently...We are going to up our tactics and strategies and try to get resolve,” he said.

As the PSA prepares its battle plan, trade union leaders are preparing to deliver a letter to Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar expressing their dissatisfaction at the state of industrial relations in the country.

Deputy president of the Federation of Independent Trade Unions (Fitun) Joseph Remy told the Trinidad Guardian trade unionists are unhappy with the progress by the Government on several issues since their last meeting with Persad-Bissessar in December.

About 19 trade unions from Fitun and the National Trade Union Centre (Natuc) met with the Prime Minister last month. However, remy believes there has not been "enough positive development" since then. “There are urgent issues that the Government needs to address so that’s why we are delivering this letter,” he explained.