Ali­cia Llanos

Pres­i­dent of the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) Wat­son Duke is no longer a "com­rade" of the na­tion­al labour fra­ter­ni­ty.The state­ment was made yes­ter­day by pres­i­dent of the Na­tion­al Union of Gov­ern­ment and Fed­er­at­ed Work­ers (NUGFW) James Lam­bert in a tele­phone in­ter­view."We can no longer call Wat­son Duke com­rade, he sold out the en­tire labour move­ment," Lam­bert said.He said Duke had now put all trade unions in a "pre­car­i­ous" po­si­tion by ac­cept­ing Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer Stephanie Lewis' five per cent wage in­crease for pub­lic ser­vants at a meet­ing on Fri­day.Lam­bert said Duke's ac­cep­tance of the five per cent of­fer would now make it dif­fi­cult for all unions to de­mand a high­er per­cent­age.He said, how­ev­er, that the NUGFW would con­tin­ue to re­ject the five per cent in­crease of­fered to it's mem­ber unions.Lam­bert claimed Duke was not hon­est "to the en­tire labour move­ment in the mat­ter in which he ac­cept­ed the in­crease."

He said the NUGFW came out to sup­port the PSA's protests against the five per cent in­crease, adding it was Duke who ini­ti­at­ed all ac­tion against the of­fer.Lam­bert said Duke did not even have the "gall" to come for­ward to the labour lead­ers who sup­port­ed him and tell them of his in­ten­tions to set­tle.He said the en­tire labour fra­ter­ni­ty had been left in "awe" when they re­ceived word Duke had ac­cept­ed the of­fer.Lam­bert said Duke failed to in­form his mem­ber­ship of his de­ci­sion to set­tle for the five per cent.He in­sist­ed the five per cent in­crease would do noth­ing to ben­e­fit pub­lic ser­vants.He claimed, too, that Duke not on­ly went against the labour fra­ter­ni­ty, but al­so the peo­ple he promised to fight for. Re­port­ing by