RHON­DOR DOWLAT 

For­mer Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) pres­i­dent Wat­son Duke and PSA mem­ber Oral Saun­ders are call­ing for im­me­di­ate elec­tions and a lead­er­ship change, as dis­sat­is­fac­tion with the union’s cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tion grows.

The elec­tions, con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly due in De­cem­ber, are be­ing seen as crit­i­cal to restor­ing con­fi­dence in the PSA, with both Duke and Saun­ders urg­ing cur­rent pres­i­dent Leroy Bap­tiste to step down.

In a video mes­sage post­ed to so­cial me­dia on Mon­day, hours af­ter the Privy Coun­cil gave the T&T Rev­enue Au­thor­i­ty the green light, Duke, who led the PSA dur­ing a pe­ri­od of in­tense ne­go­ti­a­tions with the Gov­ern­ment, point­ed to his track record of de­fend­ing pub­lic ser­vice work­ers from re­trench­ment ef­forts.

“When I was pres­i­dent, I knew what the fight re­quired, and I gave the fight what was re­quired. I de­feat­ed the bill and pro­tect­ed the work­ers,” Duke said.

Re­flect­ing on the cur­rent lead­er­ship, Duke ex­pressed dis­ap­point­ment, stat­ing that over the past two years, “all they got was promis­es that nev­er ma­te­ri­alised.”

He al­so crit­i­cised the PSA’s lead­er­ship for what he de­scribed as in­ac­tion, high­light­ing the lack of mean­ing­ful en­gage­ment with work­er is­sues.

“Trade union­ism is about fight­ing for work­ers, not talk­ing glibly. You have to speak in a way that man­age­ment un­der­stands,” Duke added, urg­ing Bap­tiste to “do the ho­n­ourable thing and call the elec­tions” be­fore the con­sti­tu­tion­al dead­line in De­cem­ber.

Duke warned against cling­ing to pow­er, say­ing, “Please, think again. Call the elec­tions and end the night of suf­fer­ing and de­spair for these pub­lic of­fi­cers.”

Saun­ders echoed Duke’s con­cerns dur­ing an in­ter­view on CNC3’s The Morn­ing Brew yes­ter­day. He ac­cused Bap­tiste of ne­glect­ing his du­ties and mis­man­ag­ing the union’s fi­nances.

“The PSA con­tin­ues to func­tion at a loss based on their own fi­nances,” Saun­ders said, em­pha­sis­ing that the cur­rent lead­er­ship was to blame for the union’s fi­nan­cial trou­bles.

He added, “This is not my opin­ion; the fi­nan­cial records show we are in se­ri­ous straits.”

Saun­ders al­so high­light­ed Bap­tiste’s re­peat­ed ab­sence from im­por­tant gen­er­al coun­cil meet­ings, not­ing, “Our rules are clear—if any­one is ab­sent for two con­sec­u­tive meet­ings with­out a valid ex­cuse, they are au­to­mat­i­cal­ly re­moved. It’s been just un­der a year since Mr Bap­tiste at­tend­ed one of those meet­ings.”

He urged Bap­tiste to step aside and al­low for a trans­par­ent and fair elec­tion, say­ing, “Do the ho­n­ourable thing and re­sign. We can­not al­low Mr Bap­tiste to in­flu­ence the elec­tion process.”

Saun­ders al­so crit­i­cised the PSA’s over-re­liance on le­gal bat­tles to solve dis­putes.

“We are a trade union. We do not have to en­gage the ju­di­cia­ry for every sin­gle chal­lenge that comes our way,” he said in re­la­tion to the PSA’s de­feat in the TTRA case.

He stressed the im­por­tance of us­ing in­tel­lec­tu­al re­sources to rep­re­sent work­ers ef­fec­tive­ly, which he claimed has been ne­glect­ed un­der Bap­tiste’s lead­er­ship.

“For over ten years we have not had a sin­gle train­ing pro­gramme to ed­u­cate our mem­bers and rep­re­sen­ta­tives, leav­ing them ill-pre­pared to de­fend work­ers at the ne­go­ti­at­ing ta­ble,” Saun­ders said.

Both Duke and Saun­ders be­lieve the PSA needs new lead­er­ship to ad­dress long-stand­ing is­sues, in­clud­ing fi­nan­cial mis­man­age­ment and in­ef­fec­tive rep­re­sen­ta­tion.