PSA lays demands at PM's door

"A hungry man" lying on the PM's driveway

The Public Services Association (PSA) staged a demonstration outside the Diplomatic Centre Thursday while cabinet ministers met inside for their weekly cabinet meeting.

About 50 members of the organisation marched from Independence Square to the Diplomatic Centre denouncing then government for spending $7.2 billion for a highway and pledging $5,000 for reformed prisoners. "Crime pays," they chanted.

The protest was to demand that the government pay better wages to public sector workers. The group blocked traffic to the centre, with one PSA member lying down on the driveway. Media reports say they told security personnel the man fainted "from hunger".

PSA president Watson Duke has threatened to call a “national day of rest” and mobilise members to block the construction of the highway to Point Fortin. 

He explained to the media that he dodes not object to the development of the country. However he said he felt the timing is wrong since workers are not getting a fair wage while all this money is going on big infrastructure projects.

Duke told the PM's Permanent Secretary, Reynold Cooper, the group would not leave until the Prime Minister sent food for them, provided a bus to take them back to Port-of-Spain and put a better wage offer on the negotiation table. They neither got food nor transportation.