Clevon Raphael

?Q: Mr Duke, what's the salary of the pres­i­dent of the Pub­lic Ser­vice As­so­ci­a­tion?

A:(A sur­prised ex­pres­sion seat­ed in the porch of a house at Fed­er­a­tion Park, Wednes­day morn­ing): I can­not give you the ex­act fig­ure, but it is pegged to that of a Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary...

Which is ap­prox­i­mate­ly?

About $30,000 a month...

Is that the main rea­son you are hus­tling this job, if I may use that term?

(Smil­ing): It couldn't be, be­cause as you see, I don't even know the fig­ure.

It's not the salary. What, then, is the mo­ti­vat­ing fac­tor?

For years, pub­lic of­fi­cers, the most im­por­tant arm of the state ap­pa­ra­tus, have been de­prived of their true worth...

How come they are the most im­por­tant arm of the....?

Be­cause it is through these per­sons that gov­ern­ment can gov­ern well or gov­ern bad­ly, right?

Can we get some­thing on just who is Wat­son Duke?

(Tak­ing fast rate, he said he was born thir­ty-some­thing years ago in Rox­bor­ough, To­ba­go; ed­u­cat­ed there, and joined the pub­lic ser­vice 15 years ago. He is a qual­i­ty con­trol of­fi­cer at the Wa­ter And Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty, and chair­man of the WASA sec­tion of the PSA.

Mar­ried, he is al­so a lay min­is­ter of the Sev­enth-Day Ad­ven­tist Church.

Do you al­ways speak this fast?

No. You told me you had a short time to do this in­ter­view, so I am fa­cil­i­tat­ing you...You want me to slow down?

No. How long have you been con­cerned about the work­ing con­di­tions of pub­lic of­fi­cers?

From the time I joined as a trainee at WASA in 1994, when I got $20 a day. I was con­cerned with what I was see­ing...that pub­lic ser­vants were not be­ing treat­ed fair­ly and that we were be­ing tak­en ad­van­tage of. I had to do some­thing about it. I came to Trinidad in 1999, when I start­ed to de­vel­op my skills as a trade union­ist.

You have had sev­er­al run-ins with the PSA and its out­go­ing pres­i­dent Jen­nifer Bap­tiste-Primus?

Yes. Af­ter I be­came chair­per­son of the WASA sec­tion the last two years...

What prompt­ed you to take up this trade union­ist role, in that you are al­so a lay preach­er..?

I didn't want to, but I felt as if God want­ed me to do some­thing; so I came to Trinidad and suc­cess­ful­ly con­test­ed the chair­man­ship of the sec­tion, and that set me on the path of war with my pres­i­dent. She be­gan to war with me.

What was one of your note­wor­thy achieve­ments for the WASA mem­bers?

The low­est-paid work­er at WASA, with his job ti­tle hos­pi­tal­i­ty as­sis­tant, is get­ting $7,000 month. And I want you put that there (point­ing to the tape recorder). Based on my ne­go­ti­a­tion, so the pres­i­dent got up­set with me.

If you should win the pres­i­den­cy, what would be your top pri­or­i­ty?

Def­i­nite­ly it would be to seek a salary ad­just­ment for every pub­lic ser­vant owed to them since 1977. They have been un­der­paid. We have the facts and not that it is based on per­cent­ages, but rather on par­i­ty.

How can you jus­ti­fy what ob­vi­ous­ly would be a salary in­crease for pub­lic ser­vants, when there is the per­cep­tion that their stan­dard of ser­vice to the pub­lic is rather se­vere­ly lack­ing?

Pay peo­ple their cor­rect salary; give peo­ple their dig­ni­ty in sync with the job that they are do­ing.

Lis­ten­ing to you, one would feel that pub­lic ser­vants are not get­ting a de­cent salary at the end of the day?

(A quick re­sponse): No; they are not. They are not! When a clerk is re­ceiv­ing $8,000 at WASA and to act in the pub­lic ser­vice you are re­ceiv­ing $3,700, or $4,200 at the high­est end of the scale, that is dis­par­i­ty...

Mr Duke, are you sug­gest­ing that the in­cum­bent PSA ex­ec­u­tive sat down and al­lowed these anom­alous sit­u­a­tions to ex­ist...do­ing noth­ing?

It could have been that one. They know­ing­ly sat down and did noth­ing about it be­cause they wicked and de­ceit­ful. Or it could have been they just didn't un­der­stand the dy­nam­ics of trade union­ism. You know some peo­ple come in­to trade union­ism be­cause they have a loud voice and a flam­boy­ant style...me­dia-savvy. While oth­ers do so be­cause they love peo­ple and come from the pas­ture...like me.

Mr Duke, what kind of trade union­ist mil­i­tant, mod­er­ate, left-wing right wing are you..?

When­ev­er I think about trade union­ism, I think about two peo­ple. First of all Moses, be­cause I think he was the first trade union leader, and Moses was just like me; he went in­to re­tire­ment, in­to a soli­tary place, mind­ing sheep..

You are not equat­ing your­self to him; are you?

(In an evan­gel­i­cal tone): He was mind­ing sheep and God came in a burn­ing bush and said, "Go down and tell Pharaoh let My peo­ple go." I don't know if it is that same God who had spo­ken to me in To­ba­go and said go down to WASA...

In Trinidad?

In Trinidad, and say to the Pharaohs down there to "let My peo­ple go." I am watch­ing this elec­tion with great in­ter­est, be­cause at this time cer­tain rev­e­la­tions are com­ing to me and I am say­ing: "God, I would have pre­ferred to stay home and watch this on the TV..."

I gath­er you are a strong, faith-based per­son. How do you pro­pose to blend the spir­i­tu­al with the sec­u­lar, if elect­ed the PSA's boss man?

Let me put this way, Clevon. At this point in time, with this lev­el of dark­ness that is com­ing over Trinidad and To­ba­go, with crime and po­lit­i­cal vig­i­lantes...despots at­tack­ing the av­er­age cit­i­zens, you need some­one to bal­ance these forces, and I think God has sent me to be that force.

And how do you plan to be this coun­ter­vail­ing force?

As the leader, I would be right­eous, I would be clean, hon­est, and I will be open. I would live my life like Je­sus.

You know lots of politi­cians, and you are one of sorts, make those same promis­es, and when they get in­to of­fice it is a horse of a very dif­fer­ent colour?

Well, maybe Christ was a politi­cian...Maybe Christ was a politi­cian. Me be­ing trans­par­ent and open does not mean that they wouldn't try to come and set me up just like they tried to set up Christ.

Mr Duke, why are you so hung up on this re­li­gious thing?

When­ev­er you step in­to a dark room, the first thing you do is to put on the light, and I am step­ping in­to a dark are­na now, which doesn't look good for any­body. The out­look for the av­er­age pub­lic ser­vant is bleak. They are mov­ing from per­ma­nen­cy to job in­se­cu­ri­ty.

Mr Duke, the PSA has al­ways been per­ceived as sup­port­ive of the PNM ad­min­is­tra­tions. What kind of ide­o­log­i­cal stance would you be tak­ing to the union if God grants your de­sire at this time?

Well, as I said, Moses was the son of a Pharaoh for a while, but he un­der­stood his role and he came down to Egypt on God's busi­ness. And if this man­date is a God man­date I must car­ry out the will of God. And if don't, I will suf­fer for it.

So you are on God's busi­ness in this all-im­por­tant bat­tle?

Yes.