Derek Achong

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says the deal bro­kered be­tween the Gov­ern­ment and Pub­lic Ser­vice As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) pres­i­dent Wat­son Duke is in the best in­ter­est of the PSA and the peo­ple of T&T.Per­sad-Bisses­sar made the com­ment while speak­ing to re­porters, af­ter the launch of the Na­tion­al Men­tor­ing Pro­gramme at the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (NA­PA), Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day

"The re­mu­ner­a­tion pack­age of­fered by the Gov­ern­ment would make the lives of pub­lic ser­vants bet­ter," she said.Per­sad-Bisses­sar cit­ed im­prove­ments to death in­sur­ance and hous­ing as key as­pects of the deal that would be of ben­e­fit to pub­lic of­fi­cers.Af­ter months of protests from the PSA over wage ne­go­ti­a­tions with Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer Stephanie Lewis, PSA pres­i­dent Wat­son Duke, last Fri­day signed a deal in the pres­ence of Per­sad-Bisses­sar and oth­er min­is­ters at the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, St Clair.

As a re­sult of the agree­ment, the mat­ter will no longer go be­fore the spe­cial tri­bunal of the In­dus­tri­al Court which was sched­uled to be­gin on May 23.The deal, which in­cludes a five per cent wage in­crease and an in­crease in life in­sur­ance cov­er­age from $500,000 to $1 mil­lion, sparked strong crit­i­cism from fel­low trade union lead­ers who have ac­cused Duke of sell­ing out pub­lic ser­vants.Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so en­cour­aged oth­er trade unions to find cre­ative so­lu­tions to re­solve wage ne­go­ti­a­tions.Duke could not be reached for com­ment yes­ter­day.

See Page A11