Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

The Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) has been or­dered to pay its for­mer long-serv­ing pres­i­dent Wat­son Duke a $25,000-a-month pen­sion while he pur­sues a law­suit over its fail­ure to pay it.

Ear­li­er this month, Duke filed a law­suit con­tend­ing the union breached his em­ploy­ment con­tract by fail­ing to pay his al­leged­ly le­git­i­mate pen­sion, af­ter he re­signed from the post in De­cem­ber 2021 in or­der to ful­fil his short-lived role as To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) deputy chief sec­re­tary.

Duke sought an in­junc­tion, as he claimed he was suf­fer­ing ex­treme fi­nan­cial hard­ship, in­clud­ing miss­ing mort­gage pay­ments and ac­cu­mu­lat­ing a $130,000 cred­it card debt.

The in­ter­im in­junc­tion, which will stay in place un­til his law­suit is de­ter­mined, was grant­ed by High Court Judge Frank Seep­er­sad yes­ter­day.

If Duke even­tu­al­ly los­es the case and the out­come re­mains the same af­ter the ap­pel­late process, he may be re­quired to re­pay the in­ter­im pen­sion pay­ments he re­ceived.

In court fil­ings ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia, Duke’s lawyers, Farai Hove-Ma­sai­sai and Chelsea Ed­wards, claimed that be­fore he took charge of the union in 2009, the union’s Gen­er­al Coun­cil passed two res­o­lu­tions on pen­sions for full-time of­fi­cers un­der the tenure of for­mer PSA pres­i­dent and Labour min­is­ter Jen­nifer Bap­tiste-Primus.

One res­o­lu­tion re­moved the age re­quire­ment for re­ceiv­ing a pen­sion, mean­ing that those who served as full-time of­fi­cers for ten con­tin­u­ous years and held a par­tic­u­lar po­si­tion for four con­tin­u­ous years were el­i­gi­ble for a pen­sion.

The oth­er sought to in­crease pen­sion ben­e­fits from 50 per cent of the last salary an of­fi­cer re­ceived to two-thirds.

Duke’s lawyers ad­mit­ted that in Sep­tem­ber 2010, the union’s gen­er­al coun­cil passed an­oth­er res­o­lu­tion re­scind­ing the pre­vi­ous two on the ba­sis that on­ly the union’s con­fer­ence of del­e­gates could have made the changes.

The gen­er­al coun­cil al­so passed a res­o­lu­tion to en­sure that its of­fi­cers were af­ford­ed the same re­tire­ment ben­e­fits as pub­lic ser­vants of a sim­i­lar rank and sta­tus.

Duke’s lawyers al­so not­ed a de­ci­sion by the con­fer­ence in March 2004 to ap­prove pen­sion rec­om­men­da­tions.

It was rec­om­mend­ed that pen­sions be paid when a full-time of­fi­cer turned 50 with vary­ing cal­cu­la­tions based on the time they served in the union.

Ed­wards claimed that when Duke re­signed from the union af­ter 12 years and at 45 in De­cem­ber 2021, it was based on the un­der­stand­ing that he would re­ceive a pen­sion based on the 2009 res­o­lu­tions.

“These res­o­lu­tions con­sti­tut­ed an ac­quired right and/or a con­trac­tu­al term of the Claimant’s of­fice as Pres­i­dent of the De­fen­dant from the time he as­sumed the of­fice,” Ed­wards said as she not­ed that the terms could not be uni­lat­er­al­ly var­ied by the union.

In Sep­tem­ber 2022, Duke re­signed from his THA post af­ter a dis­agree­ment with THA Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine over fund­ing for a group of folk per­form­ers from Rox­bor­ough, who were strand­ed on a trip to New York.

Duke, who is the po­lit­i­cal leader of the Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots (PDP), still served as the THA as­sem­bly mem­ber for Rox­bor­ough/Ar­gyle.

Ed­wards claimed that Duke’s suc­ces­sor in the PSA, Leroy Bap­tiste, gave him as­sur­ances over his pen­sion be­fore seek­ing an in­de­pen­dent le­gal opin­ion on the is­sue.

Ed­wards sug­gest­ed that the 2009 res­o­lu­tions were bind­ing as they were not sub­se­quent­ly over­turned by the con­fer­ence.

“The Gen­er­al Coun­cil can­not re­scind its own de­ci­sion, es­pe­cial­ly in the cir­cum­stances where the de­ci­sion cre­at­ed a bet­ter pen­sion en­ti­tle­ment to full-time of­fi­cers of the PSA,” she said.

She al­so claimed that it would be un­con­scionable for Bap­tiste and the union to be able to re­nege on as­sur­ances giv­en to her client.

Ed­wards claimed that Duke had suf­fered se­vere fi­nan­cial con­straints by not re­ceiv­ing the pen­sion.

“The Claimant has been un­able to meet his fi­nan­cial oblig­a­tions, lead­ing to un­paid debts and le­gal ac­tions from cred­i­tors, in­clud­ing banks, over non-pay­ment of loans and cred­it cards,” Ed­wards said.

She claimed he had an out­stand­ing $130,000 cred­it card debt and missed pay­ments on his mort­gage.

“The Claimant is now fac­ing the im­mi­nent risk of be­ing de­clared bank­rupt by the courts due to his in­abil­i­ty to pay his debts,” she said.

Ed­wards point­ed out that such in­sol­ven­cy pro­ceed­ings would mean that he would not be able to con­test the next gen­er­al elec­tions.

“This would cause ir­repara­ble harm to the Claimant’s po­lit­i­cal ca­reer and de­prive the elec­torate of their choice of rep­re­sen­ta­tive,” she said.

Through the law­suit, Duke is seek­ing a se­ries of de­c­la­ra­tions against the union and com­pen­sa­tion for breach of con­tract.

He is al­so seek­ing the pay­ment of his al­leged pen­sion ben­e­fits for the past two years, which are es­ti­mat­ed to be over $700,000.