Camille Clarke

Pres­i­dent of the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) Wat­son Duke says he will press for a $7,000 min­i­mum month­ly wage for pub­lic ser­vants in ne­go­ti­a­tions with the Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer (CPO). Duke was speak­ing at a me­dia con­fer­ence at the PSA's head­quar­ters, Port-of-Spain, on Tues­day.

The wage ne­go­ti­a­tions will be­gin at 9.30 am on May 29 at the CPO's of­fice at St Vin­cent Street, Port-of-Spain. The PSA set­tled for five per cent on April 8, 2011, for the pe­ri­od 2008 to 2010. The ne­go­ti­a­tions this year are for the years 2011 to 2013. He promised he would not be back­ing down as he was ac­cused of in the last ne­go­ti­a­tions with the CPO.

Duke said the PSA would be rep­re­sent­ing about 33,000 work­ers from "dog-catch­ers to chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cers" dur­ing the ne­go­ti­a­tions. "We won't make Trinidad and To­ba­go less at­trac­tive to in­vestors. The on­ly ef­fect we have will be pos­i­tive. We will fight with a lev­el of bold­ness and con­vic­tion and we are not look­ing for friends," said Duke.

"We are an as­so­ci­a­tion and we will not be sac­ri­fic­ing this time around. Oth­er unions re­ceived the first fruits and re­joiced. We are com­ing for the whole tree and we are not go­ing to have any lack of con­vic­tion." "I am hap­py to re­port back to the mem­ber­ship and pub­lic at large that the CPO has writ­ten back. We con­sid­er this a great step in the right di­rec­tion. Pay­day is fi­nal­ly get­ting clos­er.

"We will be ex­press­ing views of an econ­o­my that can sus­tain more than nine per cent." Duke said dur­ing the last ne­go­ti­a­tions in­fla­tion was at 16 per cent. "We ne­go­ti­at­ed when in­fla­tion was at 16 per cent and we got five per cent. Now that is a deficit of 11 per cent and we ex­pect 11 per cent to be on the ta­ble.

"We must be giv­en an in­crease com­men­su­rate with the mar­ket rate." Duke said the min­i­mum wage of work­ers must be at $7,000, and $22,000 for CEOs. "The Min­is­ter of Fi­nance must look at the re­quire­ments of pub­lic ser­vants and mar­ket rates. We are ask­ing for par­i­ty. Cur­rent­ly a clerk re­ceives $5,000. "Every­body gets what they de­serve. We should re­ceive our just in­crease. It is on­ly fair," he said.