Derek Achong

For­mer Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) pres­i­dent Jen­nifer Bap­tiste-Primus has sued the union, its pres­i­dent Leroy Bap­tiste and three of its trustees for fail­ing to in­crease her pen­sion.

In her law­suit filed last month, Bap­tiste-Primus, who served as Labour Min­is­ter be­tween 2015 and 2020, not­ed that she was forced to take the union court over her pen­sion al­most a year af­ter she re­tired in 2009.

The dis­pute was re­solved by the par­ties be­fore Jus­tice Frank Seep­er­sad could weigh in on the case and a con­sent or­der was en­tered in 2011.

Un­der the terms of the or­der, the PSA agreed that she should re­ceive a month­ly pen­sion from De­cem­ber 2012.

It al­so agreed that she would be en­ti­tled to a pen­sion in­crease every three years which was to be cal­cu­lat­ed as an amount that is equal to or at least two-thirds of the pen­sion of the of­fice hold­er, at the time the in­crease is be­ing con­sid­ered, or based on the high­est per­cent­age salary in­crease ne­go­ti­at­ed by the union for its mem­bers dur­ing the pe­ri­od, whichev­er is greater.

In her af­fi­davit at­tached to the claim, Bap­tiste-Primus said the last time she re­ceived an in­crease was in De­cem­ber 2015 when her pen­sion was in­creased from $15,488.35 to $17,656.61.

She claimed that in Feb­ru­ary 2019, she re­ceived a let­ter from for­mer PSA pres­i­dent Wat­son Duke in­di­cat­ing that the in­crease was not pos­si­ble as her pen­sion was al­ready more than two-thirds of his po­ten­tial ben­e­fits at the time and be­cause the union had not com­plet­ed any salary ne­go­ti­a­tions.

Bap­tiste-Primus claimed that Duke mis­con­strued the con­sent or­der and did not pro­vide ev­i­dence of his po­ten­tial re­tire­ment ben­e­fits at the time so she could ver­i­fy his claims.

She claimed that she re­quest­ed the in­for­ma­tion from trustees Demetrius Har­ri­son, Ray­mond But­ler, and Anne-Marie Snag­gs-Wal­lace but it was not pro­vid­ed.

Bap­tiste-Primus said she sought the court’s in­ter­ven­tion as the con­sent or­der did not con­tem­plate the sce­nario she is fac­ing.

“If my last pen­sion hap­pens to be greater than the pen­sion that is payable to the of­fice of the Pres­i­dent and the third de­fen­dant did not en­gage in ne­go­ti­a­tions over the pre­ced­ing three years, then it would be in­cum­bent on the par­ties to de­ter­mine what in­crease should be giv­en to me,” Bap­tiste-Primus said.

“It is with much dis­ap­point­ment that I am now con­strained to ap­proach this court again in or­der to com­pel the de­fen­dants to ho­n­our their con­trac­tu­al com­mit­ments un­der the con­sent or­der and oblig­a­tions un­der the law,” she added.

When the case came up for hear­ing be­fore Jus­tice Seep­er­sad, yes­ter­day morn­ing, he ques­tioned whether the con­sent or­der could be var­ied as it ex­press­ly pro­vid­ed a process to de­ter­mine whether her pen­sion could be in­creased.

He ad­journed the case to May 16 to give the par­ties time to con­sid­er the fu­ture of the case.

The PSA was rep­re­sent­ed by Shel­don My­coo and Li­onel Luck­hoo, while Mer­le Jen­nifer Den­nis rep­re­sent­ed Bap­tiste-Primus.