Resh­ma Ra­goonath

As pres­i­dent of the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) Wat­son Duke faces sting­ing crit­i­cism from fel­low labour lead­ers, Hous­ing Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal yes­ter­day de­fend­ed the union boss, in­sist­ing he (Duke) did what was best for pub­lic ser­vants.Mooni­lal, speak­ing with re­porters dur­ing a walk about in Carat Hill Trace, Bar­rack­pore, laud­ed Duke's ac­cep­tance of a five per cent in­crease for PSA mem­bers."They stuck a good deal, I think, for the ben­e­fit of all work­ers," de­clared Mooni­lal, as he con­grat­u­lat­ed Duke, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, Fi­nance Min­is­ter Win­ston Dook­er­an and the Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer Stephanie Lewis for reach­ing con­sen­sus on Fri­day af­ter months of protest.

Mooni­lal said Duke's de­ci­sion had sent a clear mes­sage to oth­er unions."To use a lo­cal slang, I think Mr Duke has sent a mes­sage to the oth­er unions, to 'wine to the side' and get out the way and bring con­sen­sus and set­tle­ment to these mat­ters be­cause we need in­dus­tri­al peace quick­ly," Mooni­lal said.Over the week­end, sev­er­al trade union lead­ers, in­clud­ing Po­lice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Sgt Anand Rame­sar, crit­i­cised Duke for ac­cept­ing the five per cent wage in­crease.How­ev­er, Mooni­lal de­fend­ed Duke."I think they (the PSA) have act­ed in a very ma­ture and time­ly man­ner, recog­nis­ing the glob­al eco­nom­ic chal­lenges and the chal­lenges in Trinidad and To­ba­go and they have opt­ed to ac­cept the five per cent," Mooni­lal said.

Duke has come un­der heavy fire for sign­ing on the dot­ted line and has been la­belled a "sell-out" by some crit­ics.Mooni­lal dis­missed this in­sist­ing that Duke did what was best for his mem­ber­ship."They stuck a good deal for the ben­e­fit of all work­ers and I con­grat­u­late Mr Duke on his vi­sion," he said."He has al­so been in the hot sun and in the rain, sleep­ing in the ground in front the Par­lia­ment so he has done his work. "He has strug­gled hard and I think this is a good deal that they have ar­rived at."

The min­is­ter said the PSA had signed an agree­ment which would be of sub­stan­tial ben­e­fit to all pub­lic of­fi­cers. Un­der the agree­ment, the Gov­ern­ment would pro­vide ex­ten­sive health­care for fam­i­ly mem­bers and "look at the pos­si­bil­i­ty of hous­ing and the pro­vi­sions of lands for pub­lic of­fi­cers," he said.At Carat Hill Trace, res­i­dents raised a num­ber of con­cerns, main­ly a lack of prop­er drainage, with the min­is­ter.Mooni­lal told the res­i­dents a de­sign plan for box drains would be drawn up for the area and im­ple­ment­ed soon.