The chair­man of the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA), St Ann’s Hos­pi­tal sec­tion, Pre­ston George, is call­ing on its pres­i­dent Wat­son Duke to apol­o­gise to eight re­tired PSA pen­sion­ers who are await­ing ar­rears and gra­tu­ity ben­e­fits due to them for over a decade.

George chal­lenged Duke to apol­o­gise to the pen­sion­ers, six of whom are el­der­ly women strug­gling fi­nan­cial­ly to sur­vive dur­ing this pan­dem­ic.

Orig­i­nal­ly, there were nine pen­sion­ers, but one passed away not too long ago.

George said it was high time the pen­sion­ers’ pay­ments be set­tled so they could live com­fort­ably and en­joy their twi­light years.

Col­lec­tive­ly, George said, the pen­sion­ers are owed over $500,000.

A cal­cu­la­tion of one pen­sion­er showed she is cur­rent­ly owed $76,252,80 in ben­e­fits.

Al­so, she is en­ti­tled to a month­ly pen­sion of $1,906.32. 

In a let­ter dat­ed Ju­ly 6, 2020, Duke ad­vised at­tor­ney Keron May­nard rep­re­sent­ing the pen­sion­ers that PSA was dili­gent­ly pur­su­ing a res­o­lu­tion of this his­tor­i­cal mat­ter.

“We have fi­nal­ly re­ceived the re­vised cal­cu­la­tions,” Duke stat­ed in his let­ter, promis­ing to bring the mat­ter to a close be­fore Ju­ly 31, 2020.

By Au­gust, George said, the PSA kept lin­ger­ing with the is­sue and May­nard was in­struct­ed by his clients to take le­gal ac­tion.

But the PSA asked May­nard for more time.

Al­most a year lat­er, George said, the pay­ments have stalled.

The pen­sion­ers com­plet­ed their terms of em­ploy­ment with the PSA and re­tired at var­i­ous times over the pe­ri­od 2010 to 2018.

At the time of their re­tire­ments, salary ne­go­ti­a­tions were on­go­ing for the pe­ri­ods 2008 to 2010 and 2011 to 2013.

The PSA’s agreed prac­tice is that, on com­ple­tion and im­ple­men­ta­tion of these new salaries, em­ploy­ees, in­clud­ing re­tired em­ploy­ees to whom they ap­ply are paid their salary. 

Al­so, re­tired em­ploy­ees are paid re­vised pen­sion and gra­tu­ity ben­e­fits based on the new salary set­tled.

George said while these pen­sion­ers have not re­ceived a cent, a $521,000 in pen­sion pay­ments was giv­en to Duke in 2019—who had promised to re­sign but did not.

Duke’s mat­ter re­mains an ac­tive po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion by the Fraud Squad.

“We the mem­bers of the PSA are call­ing on Duke to apol­o­gise to the pen­sion­ers who have been wait­ing in vain for years for their monies,” George said yes­ter­day, dur­ing a tele­phone in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia.

He said the treat­ment met­ed out to the pen­sion­ers was tan­ta­mount to dis­re­spect and ne­glect.

George said all unions should con­demn Duke’s ac­tion.

“Your pen­sion and gra­tu­ity are based on trust. You are trust­ing that those who you are work­ing for could have your monies safe when you re­tire so you could live a fair­ly com­fort­able life in your se­nior years. But these pen­sion­ers are feel­ing cheat­ed. They have been de­prived of what is right­ful­ly due to them. It clear­ly shows a breach of trust.

“It is clear the PSA do not want to pay these pen­sion­ers at all. This is what it boils down to. But I have no in­ten­tion of leav­ing this mat­ter un­done,” George said.

Duke failed to re­spond to What­sApp mes­sages sent to him yes­ter­day.