Public Services Association (PSA) president Watson Duke is urging all public servants to send a clear message to the People's National Movement (PNM) by not voting for the party in the upcoming Local Government election later this month. The call was issued in response to a plan announced by Finance Minister Colm Imbert to start wage negotiations for public servants at 0-0-0.
Imbert later explained that the measure was a wage restraint which would allow for possible increases less than 14 per cent. During the last round of salary negotiations for the period 2010 to 2013, public servants received a 14 per cent increase.
Referring to statements circulating on social media yesterday, Duke sought to assure public servants that the PSA would not “retreat” in the face of Government’s stated intention.
Speaking during a hastily arranged press conference at the PSA head office in Port-of-Spain, Duke admitted the news had caught them “off guard,” given the upcoming holiday season. He described the announcement as a “bitter pill to swallow” and accused Government of putting obstacles in the path of public servants’ financial progress.
However, he urged workers to demonstrate their power by voting out the PNM.
“Vote the PNM out in the Local Government election. Do not vote for them, vote them out. Vote for anybody, vote for the MSJ but do not vote for the PNM,” he urged.
Surrounded by an all-female panel of senior PSA officers, Duke said Imbert’s decree for workers to go for 2017 to 2020 without a salary increase was akin to “pulling something over our eyes and saying do not look into the future, it does not look good.”
Throwing out some questions of his own, Duke asked when and where the decision was taken.
“Was it made at Cabinet, discussed at Parliament or in some room elsewhere?” he asked.
Also seeking to find out if there would be a freeze on all prices, including groceries, rent, taxi fare and pharmaceuticals, Duke accused Imbert of making “political mischief” and climbing into bed with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and what he labelled a local “special interest group.”
He said the cost of human life was “growing less and less important to Government daily” and instead of making strides in the areas of health and security, they were sadly lacking in terms of resources and infrastructure.
He claimed Imbert had been given a mandate to “widen the gap between the upper and middle class” in a move intended to destroy the hopes and aspirations of the average man on the street to enjoy a comfortable life.
“When you can cut off hope for four years and say to them, ‘You have to do that,’ it means you have lost your mandate,” Duke said. He said the action could lead to possible fallout.
“We can see people acting out of fear and frustration and violence will grow ten times more on the street because they are not governing this country as if they had concerns for the social fabric of this country,” he said.
To the Government, he advised: “You have brought this upon the country and I pray to God you will find a way to treat with it. They did not vote for all this pain and suffering, harsh and oppressive treatment they are getting at the hands of the PNM. This is a poor man’s fight.”