SHAR­LENE RAM­PER­SAD

Work­ers at the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty’s (WASA) St Joseph head­quar­ters re­port­ed for du­ty in their num­bers yes­ter­day, seem­ing­ly ig­nor­ing a call from Na­tion­al Trade Union Cen­tre (NATUC) and Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Wat­son Duke to stay at home.

Duke re­cent­ly told WASA work­ers they should take the day to rest, re­flect and re­set their minds af­ter a Par­lia­ment Sub-Com­mit­tee re­port found that po­lit­i­cal pa­tron­age and trade union in­volve­ment in cor­rupt and un­eth­i­cal prac­tices had crip­pled the au­thor­i­ty. Al­though he ad­mit­ted a com­pa­ny owned by his wife, Kim­ber­ly Duke re­ceived con­tracts from WASA, Duke de­nied in­flu­enc­ing those con­tracts.

At a press con­fer­ence on Mon­day, he point­ed fin­gers at at­tor­ney Sharon Row­ley, the wife of Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and An­gus Young, the broth­er of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young. He ques­tioned whether both par­ties and the busi­ness­es they are af­fil­i­at­ed with held con­tracts with WASA. Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley and Young dis­missed those claims.

Yes­ter­day, Duke did not re­spond to mul­ti­ple calls from Guardian Me­dia on the num­ber of em­ploy­ees who heed­ed his call. A PSA rep­re­sen­ta­tive at WASA al­so de­clined a re­quest for an in­ter­view, say­ing he was busy.

But while Duke has de­clared war on Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les and the Gov­ern­ment for what he has deemed an at­tack on WASA work­ers, sev­er­al of those em­ploy­ees said yes­ter­day they do not sup­port his call.

The em­ploy­ees re­quest­ed to re­main anony­mous but one woman said Duke made his call for the work­ers to stay home with­out meet­ing with them.

“We heard about it on the news, he could have at least met with the work­ers be­fore. No­body go­ing to take him on now,” she said.

“The way he be­haves is like he does not know what is ac­tu­al­ly go­ing on with the work­ers.”

An­oth­er em­ploy­ee said he did not be­lieve Duke’s call ap­plied to him, as he is dai­ly-paid and not rep­re­sent­ed by the PSA.

When he was told Duke’s call came from his po­si­tion as NATUC pres­i­dent, the man said he still would not sup­port it.

“Let us say I lose my job, you think Duke will care? They sit­ting in their of­fices and talk­ing for peo­ple that they don’t know and don’t care about. I need my job and at the end of the day, I am grate­ful for it,” he said.

The man said he will do what is nec­es­sary to keep his job and he be­lieves ig­nor­ing calls to strike falls with­in that re­mit.

Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day morn­ing the head of de­part­ment of the Op­er­a­tion de­part­ment was in­struct­ed to pro­vide a roll call to him by mid­day. Gon­za­les did not re­spond to fur­ther ques­tions on the num­ber of em­ploy­ees who failed to show up for their du­ties but is­sued a press re­lease thank­ing pub­lic ser­vants for re­port­ing for du­ty as usu­al yes­ter­day.