Ali­cia Llanos

The Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) and em­ploy­ees of the Board of In­land Rev­enue (BIR) and Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion are cel­e­brat­ing the fail­ure of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Rev­enue Au­thor­i­ty (TTRA) bill at Thurs­day's sit­ting of the Sen­ate. Yes­ter­day, the PSA, led by its pres­i­dent Wat­son Duke, and em­ploy­ees of the BIR and Cus­toms and Ex­cise walked the streets of down town Port-of-Spain car­ry­ing plac­ards that read "Vic­to­ry" and "Amen, Amen" in the wake of the fail­ure of the bill brought about by the dis­so­lu­tion of Par­lia­ment at mid­night on Thurs­day.

The PSA had been con­test­ing the es­tab­lish­ment of the Au­thor­i­ty ever since it was first pro­posed in the 2010 bud­get. The PSA won the sup­port of oth­er unions and from the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress which af­ford­ed PSA 2nd vice pres­i­dent Christo­pher Joe­field a tem­po­rary sen­a­tor­ship so that he could con­tribute to the de­bate in the Up­per House. Duke ad­dressed the crowd de­clar­ing vic­to­ry for the coun­try's pub­lic ser­vants and all those in the work­ing class. He said it was com­mit­ment of the em­ploy­ees and the sup­port of oth­ers that even­tu­al­ly brought the bill and gov­ern­ment to their knees. Duke said, "They thought we would give up! But look who is giv­ing up now!"

He crit­i­cised Fi­nance Min­is­ter Karen Tesheira for "bam­boo­zling" the pub­lic and Sen­ate by de­clar­ing the PSA and the Min­istry had signed a mem­o­ran­dum of un­der­stand­ing, which he de­scribed as a bla­tant lie. Duke con­grat­u­lat­ed Joe­field for rep­re­sent­ing the voice of the PSA in Sen­ate. Joe­field said he felt, "Sat­is­fac­tion that the PSA had pre­vailed against the op­pres­sive na­ture of the em­ploy­er class against the work­ing class." He praised all the em­ploy­ees of the BIR and Cus­toms and Ex­cise for their sup­port say­ing, "This ef­fort that we start­ed has cul­mi­nat­ed and re­sult­ed in the fall of the TTRA." Joe­field re­mind­ed em­ploy­ees that the bat­tle was not over and urged them to keep the pres­sure up.

In re­la­tion to dis­so­lu­tion of Par­lia­ment he said, "The track record of our pre­vi­ous em­ploy­er (PNM) was dis­mal. We not giv­ing them a sec­ond chance!" Joe­field en­cour­aged all em­ploy­ees and mem­bers of the PSA to make their voic­es heard and vote in the up­com­ing gen­er­al elec­tion. Af­ter months of protest and bat­tle the PSA, em­ploy­ees of the BIR and Cus­toms and Ex­cise are cel­e­brat­ing the fail­ure of the TTRA bill.