Ali­cia Llanos

The Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) has de­liv­ered let­ters of pre-ac­tion pro­to­col to the North Cen­tral Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (NCRHA) and the Gov­ern­ment Pub­lic Ser­vice Com­mis­sion. Af­ter de­liv­er­ing a let­ter to the NCRHA at its head of­fices at the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex, PSA pres­i­dent Wat­son Duke an­nounced the "warn­ing shot had been fired." The let­ter, which were pre­pared by at­tor­ney Li­onel Luck­hoo, ad­vised both par­ties to de­sist from ini­ti­at­ing any ac­tion against staff mem­bers who em­ployed Sec­tion 15 of the Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Health and Safe­ty (OSH) Act that gave them the right to walk off the job if they felt their health or safe­ty was at risk.

Duke said he had re­ceived re­ports that both the Di­rec­tor of Per­son­nel Ad­min­is­tra­tion (DPA) Glo­ria Ed­wards-Joseph and man­age­ment of the NCRHA had threat­ened em­ploy­ees with dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion af­ter they em­ployed Sec­tion 15 with the PSA's ad­vice. In both let­ters Luck­hoo ad­vised: "I am now in the process of re­ceiv­ing in­struc­tions with a view to en­gag­ing se­nior coun­sel and would there­fore ask that you hold your hand from ini­ti­at­ing ac­tion against mem­bers of staff pend­ing the re­ceipt of le­gal ad­vice." The PSA charged the NCRHA with the in­ac­cu­rate cit­ing of Sec­tion 14 of the OSH Act; fail­ure to ad­dress health and safe­ty con­cerns re­port­ed by staff in nei­ther a time­ly nor ef­fec­tive man­ner; and, the non-com­pli­ance with the OSH Act.

Note to self

Ear­li­er this week Duke threat­ened le­gal ac­tion against the Pub­lic Ser­vice Com­mis­sion and NCRHA. He said em­ploy­ees at both in­sti­tu­tions had made nu­mer­ous com­plaints to man­age­ment re­gard­ing their in­san­i­tary work­ing con­di­tions and that nei­ther in­sti­tu­tions had set up a health and safe­ty com­mit­tee as man­dat­ed by the Act. Yes­ter­day, Duke al­so vis­it­ed the Min­istry of Le­gal Af­fairs, South Quay, Port-of-Spain, and or­dered em­ploy­ees of the build­ing to va­cate it.