JENSEN LA VENDE

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath has or­dered the man­age­ment of the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty to im­me­di­ate­ly re­sume wage ne­go­ti­a­tions with the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA).

In a state­ment to Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day, Padarath said the PSA is a valu­able part­ner with the Gov­ern­ment and apol­o­gised for what he said was a uni­lat­er­al de­ci­sion by WASA to stop ne­go­ti­a­tions.

“As Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Util­i­ties, I in­ter­vened in an im­passe be­tween WASA and PSA. I spoke with both the act­ing CEO of WASA, Mr Dain Ma­haraj, and the pres­i­dent of PSA, Fe­l­isha Thomas,” he told Par­lia­ment.

His com­ment came af­ter Thomas led work­ers to the HR de­part­ment, on the sec­ond floor of the St Joseph branch of WASA, singing and clap­ping, de­mand­ing their monies.

Guardian Me­dia was told that there was sup­posed to be a meet­ing with the WASA ex­ec­u­tives, but that was can­celled. Thomas, how­ev­er, did go to the fourth floor, where she briefly met with Ma­haraj.

Padarath added: “I in­struct­ed WASA to meet with the PSA to con­tin­ue ne­go­ti­a­tions to­day! Mr Speak­er.

“PSA con­tin­ues to be a val­ued part­ner in the Gov­ern­ment, and WASA re­grets the uni­lat­er­al ac­tion of one em­ploy­ee in bring­ing about this sit­u­a­tion.”

When Guardian Me­dia ap­proached Thomas af­ter the meet­ing, she said she had no com­ment.

The PSA is the chief mem­ber of the Coali­tion of In­ter­ests, the con­glom­er­ate of unions in sup­port of the Gov­ern­ment.

PSA al­so en­dorsed the Gov­ern­ment in the lead-up to last year’s gen­er­al elec­tion.

The As­so­ci­a­tion was one of the first unions to be of­fered and ac­cept the ten per cent wage in­crease; how­ev­er, WASA work­ers, al­though PSA mem­bers, did not ben­e­fit from that agree­ment.

Thomas, who is a WASA em­ploy­ee, de­nied that the ac­tion tak­en was a form of protest and when told Guardian Me­dia heard and saw the protest, replied: “A protest against the Gov­ern­ment? You saw a protest against the Gov­ern­ment?”

She added: “To­day is May Day!”

Asked how the meet­ing with Ma­haraj went, Thomas said: “Ex­cel­lent as usu­al.”

She added that she would “ad­dress the mem­ber­ship in due time” when asked how soon the PSA would dis­cuss the out­come of the meet­ing with its mem­bers.

While at the protest, Guardian Me­dia over­heard sev­er­al em­ploy­ees dis­cussing the “re­al sense” of it, say­ing it was just for show.

One man said Thomas could have eas­i­ly “What­sApp the man (Ma­haraj)” giv­en that the Gov­ern­ment and the PSA are on good terms.