Raphael John-Lall

Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) pres­i­dent Wat­son Duke is rid­ing roughshod over the PSA's con­sti­tu­tion. This is the lat­est ac­cu­sa­tion from Harold Mur­ray, chair­man, PSA Rebels, the main op­po­si­tion group in the union. On Sep­tem­ber 21, Duke, in a high­ly con­tro­ver­sial move, trans­ferred in ex­cess of $4 mil­lion of the union's funds from First Cit­i­zens bank (FC) to RBC Roy­al Bank be­tween Park and Hen­ry Streets, Port-of-Spain. He told the me­dia that FC told him it was clos­ing the union's ac­count there. Mur­ray, who spoke to the Busi­ness Guardian in an in­ter­view on Mon­day, was ac­com­pa­nied by an­oth­er Rebels spokesper­son and for­mer Gen­er­al Coun­cil mem­ber, Alana George, at Mur­ray's of­fice at the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion, San Fer­nan­do. They paint­ed a pic­ture of the PSA pres­i­dent who us­es loop­holes in the con­sti­tu­tion to get his own way, who hires and fires at will.

Spend­ing habits

Ac­cord­ing to George, Wat­son Duke col­lects a month­ly salary of $26,000. In de­scrib­ing Duke's spend­ing habits, George said: "He is a law on­to him­self and there's no trans­paren­cy." "In terms of al­lowances, the pres­i­dent has $2,500 a month in en­ter­tain­ment, the phone al­lowance is $1,500, trav­el­ling al­lowance is $2,000 a month, hous­ing al­lowance of $5,000 and he cur­rent­ly has a chauf­feur al­lowance of $1,500, yet he dri­ves him­self. "How­ev­er, right now, his hous­ing al­lowance is $7,500, that's the rent the union is pay­ing for him in Diego Mar­tin," he said. She said the salary of the pres­i­dent is "pegged" to that of a per­ma­nent sec­re­tary (PS) in the Pub­lic Ser­vice. "The PS is al­lowed a hous­ing al­lowance of $5,000 from the Gov­ern­ment. So we were will­ing to put the same for his hous­ing and any­thing ex­tra, he pays it from his salary. When he was just elect­ed, he lived in West­moor­ings and paid a rent of $10,000 and we raised is­sue with it. Then he moved to Diego Mar­tin and paid rent of $7,500. Right now, we are not sure where he is" George said.

She added that there were prob­lems with his cred­it card use from the be­gin­ning. "The cred­it card was orig­i­nal­ly ap­proved by the Gen­er­al Coun­cil to pur­chase items on­line for the union un­der the pre­vi­ous pres­i­dent. Then, the cred­it card was con­tin­ued to be used abroad for trav­el­ling on union's busi­ness, but un­der Duke, there is no ac­count­abil­i­ty," George said. She ac­cused him of us­ing the union's cred­it card for triv­ial us­es. "Us­ing the union's cred­it card to buy bread, per­son­al items, hard­ware items, even lin­gerie? Those are not things for per­son­al use. Of course, many of these things have been doc­u­ment­ed since 2010. He got the cred­it card in De­cem­ber 2009, and on­ly when we in the Gen­er­al Coun­cil, got the state­ment in 2010, we be­gan to ask what was go­ing on. We didn't even know the bank had is­sued the cred­it card to him," she said.

She al­so said Duke has been hir­ing peo­ple and pay­ing them salaries that have not been al­lowed in the con­sti­tu­tion. "The cur­rent trea­sur­er, Jil­lian Be­deau-Cal­len­der, is re­ceiv­ing a big­ger salary than the in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions of­fi­cer. She is re­ceiv­ing about $13,000 a month. The in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions of­fi­cer's salary is around $12,000 a month. The con­sti­tu­tion says that the po­si­tion of trea­sur­er should be part-time. Ar­ti­cle 37-C says the sec­ond vice-pres­i­dent, trea­sur­er and two trustees shall be part-time of­fi­cers. There is no way the pres­i­dent can just change this."

Chang­ing banks: A back­ward move

Com­ment­ing on the move­ment of the $4 mil­lion of the PSA's funds from FC to RBC Roy­al Bank, Mur­ray called it a "back­ward move." "One must not on­ly ques­tion the re­moval of the mon­ey from one bank to a next; one must ques­tion the man­ner in which it was done," Mur­ray said. George said Duke has be­trayed the ide­ol­o­gy held by oth­er lo­cal unions of keep­ing their funds in a lo­cal bank. "Na­tion­al Trade Union Cen­tre (Natuc) had made a de­ci­sion to sup­port lo­cal banks and not have our mon­ey be­ing stored in for­eign banks. By this de­ci­sion, Duke has gone back to the days of colo­nial­ism by go­ing back to a for­eign-owned bank," she said. She ad­mit­ted he had lit­tle choice as FC called and told him to take the mon­ey, "But that should raise red flags." Duke told the me­dia that two let­ters were al­leged­ly sent by "ex­pelled mem­bers," Rendy Be­dassie and Oral Saun­ders, to FC on Au­gust 18 and Sep­tem­ber 5, in­struct­ing the bank not to al­low Duke ac­cess to the funds. Mur­ray said a court should have de­ter­mined who has au­thor­i­ty to ac­cess the mon­ey. "When that hap­pens, you freeze all; you don't give it to any one side," he said.

Too much pow­er

Mur­ray com­plained that the of­fice of the pres­i­dent of the PSA has too much pow­er. "That's one of the things we are look­ing at: har­ness­ing the pow­er of the pres­i­dent. The of­fice of the pres­i­dent has too much pow­er. He sits at every meet­ing. He chairs every meet­ing," Mur­ray said. He said past PSA pres­i­dents op­er­at­ed with­in the "spir­it of the con­sti­tu­tion." "Duke abus­es what he sees as loop­holes," Mur­ray said.

George added: "The con­sti­tu­tion nev­er ac­count­ed for a rogue pres­i­dent." George ad­mit­ted that the con­sti­tu­tion does not give the mem­ber­ship much chance to pe­nalise a pres­i­dent that spends wild­ly. "In this re­spect, the con­sti­tu­tion is flawed and the Rebels ad­mit this. The Rebels do have a con­sti­tu­tion re­form com­mit­tee and we meet on a reg­u­lar ba­sis. We dis­cuss what are the flaws in the con­sti­tu­tion and dis­cuss plans to re­form it, once we are elect­ed to of­fice," she said.

Poor in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions

George said Duke's bad gov­er­nance has led to poor in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions from the union. "Our main con­cern with him is lack of rep­re­sen­ta­tion. The ba­sis of any union is its in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions. When we be­gan meet­ing with mem­bers we re­alised that they were dis­sat­is­fied. He was elect­ed on a tick­et of rep­re­sen­ta­tion." She called for de­cen­tral­i­sa­tion to Duke's top down ap­proach. "Sim­ple mat­ters like an air con­di­tion unit break­ing down in a de­part­ment, we have to call the union's head of­fice. This should be solved at the shop stew­ard lev­el. The cen­tral ex­ec­u­tive should not have the bulk of the in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions mat­ters to deal with. The cen­tral gov­ern­ment look­ing for lo­cal gov­ern­ment re­form and he is de­stroy­ing PSA 'lo­cal gov­ern­ment,'" she said. George al­leged that Duke has sus­pend­ed re­gion­al union elec­tions.

"Duke re­fus­es to hold elec­tions for the PSA re­gions. These are sup­posed to be held every two years. It was con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly due on May 2010. He de­cid­ed not to hold any elec­tions."

Many of the peo­ple who ran on his slate when he was elect­ed have now turned against him, she said.

"The on­ly per­sons that were elect­ed that are cur­rent­ly in the ex­ec­u­tive is the sec­ond vice-pres­i­dent, and the IRO, Nixon Cal­len­der, who is now the gen­er­al sec­re­tary and the trea­sur­er. The oth­ers he ap­point­ed af­ter fir­ing those who were elect­ed. The con­sti­tu­tion does not give au­thor­i­ty to fire elect­ed mem­bers un­less it comes to the con­fer­ence of the Gen­er­al Coun­cil."

Tak­ing the fight on­line

George said the Rebels has its own Face­book page and Web site and is ready to con­test the elec­tion in 2013. She said the union has a great his­to­ry dat­ing back to 1938 and it is sad to see where the union has reached. "We want to en­cour­age mem­bers not to drop out. We en­cour­age mem­bers to read and get in­volved in what is go­ing on in the union. If you don't want to sup­port the Rebels, at least sup­port a cause." She does not be­lieve there is hope for the Duke to meet with the op­po­si­tion groups in the union.

"I think he has made it clear he doesn't want to meet with any of us." George said the Rebels will con­tin­ue work­ing with and ed­u­cat­ing PSA mem­bers as the union is one of the biggest and most im­por­tant in T&T.

"We sup­port get­ting rid of Duke by 2013, be­cause by then, there may be no union. Suc­ces­sive gov­ern­ments have been try­ing to get rid of the union. There are now is­sues like con­tract labour we have to deal with." Mur­ray said the PSA still has to sign off sev­er­al agree­ments, but that Duke has been con­stant­ly set­tling for five per cent. "We still have the Na­tion­al In­sur­ance Board (NIB) and Met­al In­dus­tries Com­pa­ny Ltd (MIC). He is not mov­ing from that five per cent. Is he an agent of the Gov­ern­ment?" Mur­ray asked.

Lead­er­ship style

"PSA Rebels were born out of dis­sat­is­fac­tion with Wat­son Duke and his lead­er­ship style. He has gone con­trary to the con­sti­tu­tion and to good in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions. He has been a law on­to him­self," Mur­ray said. De­spite name call­ing by Duke, Mur­ray said the Rebels has been able to gar­ner wide­spread sup­port. "He called us dis­si­dents, Jen­nifer's peo­ple and bal­isi­er wa­vers. We said if we are be­ing called these things, then we de­cid­ed to form an in­ter­nal par­ty to con­tests the next PSA elec­tion in 2013. We've been around for 18 months. This past Labour Day, the Rebels had more than 200 peo­ple march­ing in Fyz­abad. We have mem­bers who did not march, but they sup­port us."

Fiery time­line

The re­la­tion­ship be­tween the PSA Rebels and PSA pres­i­dent Wat­son Duke has been ac­ri­mo­nious from day one. Duke be­came pres­i­dent of the PSA in No­vem­ber 2009. In Au­gust 2011, when sus­pend­ed Gen­er­al Coun­cil mem­bers stormed Duke's of­fice on Aber­crom­by Street, Port-of-Spain, the Rebels fac­tion was not part of that ac­tion, as is com­mon­ly be­lieved. The group said it does not con­done vi­o­lent ac­tion and in­stead will re­mained fo­cused on con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form and com­mu­ni­ty meet­ings with mem­bers. More than 200 mem­bers marched in Fyz­abad on June 19-Labour Day-to demon­strate how dis­en­chant­ed they are with Duke's lead­er­ship style and his grow­ing op­po­si­tion. In May 2011, the Rebels did as­sist the two sus­pend­ed PSA trustees who took Duke to court. The fac­tion was formed in April 2010 when Duke fired gen­er­al sec­re­tary, Oral Saun­ders. Many of the mem­bers that were sus­pend­ed in the Gen­er­al Coun­cil went on to form the Rebels fac­tion. The Rebels have formed a slate and are ready to face Duke in the 2013 PSA elec­tion.

When the Busi­ness Guardian called Wat­son Duke, pres­i­dent of the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA), on Tues­day morn­ing to re­spond to claims made against him by the PSA Rebels fac­tion, about his lead­er­ship style, spend­ing, al­lowances, salaries for se­lect­ed mem­bers of staff, and oth­er con­tro­ver­sial is­sues, he de­clined to com­ment. "I have noth­ing to com­ment on any­thing they say. I have noth­ing to say," Duke said.