For­mer pres­i­dent of the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) Jen­nifer Bap­tiste-Primus claims the as­so­ci­a­tion's pres­i­dent Wat­son Duke agreed to the five per cent wage in­crease for pub­lic ser­vants long be­fore sign­ing the agree­ment with Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer Stephanie Lewis.Speak­ing yes­ter­day on I95.5FM's call-in pro­gramme, Bap­tiste-Primus, now a talk show host at the ra­dio sta­tion, claimed Duke had set­tled for the five per cent in­crease be­fore last week's meet­ing with Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Lewis.About the meet­ing, Bap­tiste-Primus said: "The whole thing was stage-man­aged."Last Fri­day, Duke signed a Mem­o­ran­dum of Un­der­stand­ing (MOU) be­tween the PSA and Lewis agree­ing to a five per cent wage in­crease for pub­lic ser­vants at the Prime Min­is­ter's Of­fice, St Clair.

Duke's ac­cep­tance of the five per cent wage in­crease sur­prised both mem­bers of the PSA and oth­er trade unions, who sup­port­ed Duke's protest against the of­fer.Bap­tiste-Primus said the process of agree­ment en­tailed Lewis sub­mit­ting a draft agree­ment to the union for it's ap­proval.She said once the draft was sent back to Lewis, in­di­cat­ing the union's agree­ment, a fi­nal con­tract was put to­geth­er for sign­ing.

She claimed, too, that by Duke sign­ing the agree­ment last Fri­day, it was an in­di­ca­tor he had pre­vi­ous­ly agreed to the five per cent wage in­crease with­out con­sult­ing the PSA mem­ber­ship and fel­low trade unions.She said: "The dis­hon­esty comes in when you know you have ar­rived at a po­si­tion and did not go the union's high­er body nor did you tell your col­leagues in the trade union move­ment."

Bap­tiste-Primus claimed Duke's de­ci­sion to sign an agree­ment with­out con­sult­ing the union's gen­er­al coun­cil was "dic­ta­to­r­i­al" and "un­de­mo­c­ra­t­ic."She said Duke had the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to call a meet­ing with the gen­er­al coun­cil to in­form them he viewed the five per cent of­fer ac­cept­able.Bap­tiste-Primus said Duke did a great dis­ser­vice to all the trade unions who stood in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the PSA against the five per cent wage of­fer.

"The en­tire trade union fra­ter­ni­ty came to­geth­er to sup­port the PSA, and if Duke felt he had reached a point in ne­go­ti­a­tions where he was ready to ac­cept the of­fer, out of cour­tesy alone he should have in­formed them."Bap­tiste-Primus said Duke's de­ci­sion to sign for the five per cent in­crease had up­set all pub­lic ser­vants and trade unions.She said: "They (pub­lic ser­vants) are not at all hap­py."Duke did not re­spond to phone calls yes­ter­day and mes­sages left for him were not re­turned up to late yes­ter­day.