For­mer Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) gen­er­al sec­re­tary and de­feat­ed 2025 pres­i­den­tial can­di­date Nixon Cal­len­der has is­sued a warn­ing to mem­bers, con­demn­ing what he de­scribes as an alarm­ing shift to­wards po­lit­i­cal align­ment with­in the union.

In a strong­ly word­ed state­ment yes­ter­day, Cal­len­der ac­cused new­ly elect­ed PSA pres­i­dent Fe­l­isha Thomas and her ex­ec­u­tive of be­tray­ing the union’s core mis­sion by open­ly sup­port­ing a po­lit­i­cal par­ty.

Cal­len­der said re­cent state­ments from Thomas con­firmed that the PSA was no longer func­tion­ing as an in­de­pen­dent trade union but had be­come a po­lit­i­cal arm of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC).

He crit­i­cised Thomas’ de­c­la­ra­tion, af­ter she had been con­firmed as the win­ner of the elec­tion on Wednes­day, that her “first or­der of busi­ness” was to re­move the rul­ing Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) from of­fice, ar­gu­ing that such a stance re­de­fines the PSA as a po­lit­i­cal weapon rather than a rep­re­sen­ta­tive body for pub­lic ser­vants.

He de­scribed this as a dan­ger­ous de­vel­op­ment, warn­ing it com­pro­mised the union’s abil­i­ty to fair­ly rep­re­sent work­ers, par­tic­u­lar­ly when a dif­fer­ent par­ty is in pow­er.

Cal­len­der em­pha­sised that the PSA was found­ed on prin­ci­ples of neu­tral­i­ty and work­ers’ ad­vo­ca­cy, ne­go­ti­at­ing with the gov­ern­ment of the day rather than at­tempt­ing to over­throw it.

In De­cem­ber last year, out­go­ing PSA leader Leroy Bap­tiste was re­port­ed­ly sched­uled to meet with UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, as she sought to as­sem­ble mem­bers of the “Coali­tion of In­ter­ests.”

Yes­ter­day, Cal­len­der al­so point­ed to past in­stances of po­lit­i­cal “en­tan­gle­ment” with­in the PSA, ref­er­enc­ing for­mer pres­i­dent Wat­son Duke, who left the union to pur­sue a po­lit­i­cal ca­reer with the Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots (PDP).

Cal­len­der warned that the PSA’s cred­i­bil­i­ty is now at risk, po­ten­tial­ly dam­ag­ing its role as a bar­gain­ing agent for work­ers. He urged PSA mem­bers to re­ject what he termed a “dan­ger­ous path” and de­mand the union re­main po­lit­i­cal­ly neu­tral. He al­so called on mem­bers to hold the ex­ec­u­tive ac­count­able and en­sure the union re­mains fo­cused on work­ers’ rights rather than po­lit­i­cal cam­paigns.

“The PSA ex­ists to fight for work­ers’ rights, not to fight elec­tions,” he de­clared.

“If we al­low the PSA to be­come a po­lit­i­cal tool, we will lose every­thing we have fought for.”

Cal­len­der’s warn­ing came amid on­go­ing con­cerns about stalled labour ne­go­ti­a­tions, which he at­trib­uted to the PSA’s politi­ci­sa­tion of is­sues over the past decade. He in­sist­ed pub­lic of­fi­cers must re­claim con­trol of the union and re­store its cred­i­bil­i­ty as an in­de­pen­dent voice.

—Ot­to Car­ring­ton