Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@cnc3.co.tt

The Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) closed off nom­i­na­tions for its forth­com­ing elec­tions last Fri­day.

So far, three teams have of­fi­cial­ly sub­mit­ted their can­di­da­cies: the PSA Unit­ed Team Sen­tinel, the Unit­ed Pub­lic Of­fi­cers, and the in­cum­bent slate.

The elec­tions, set for March 10, will be over­seen by elec­tions of­fi­cer Desmond Noel.

The first team to file nom­i­na­tions at the PSA head­quar­ters in Port-of-Spain last Thurs­day was the Unit­ed Pub­lic Of­fi­cers, led by for­mer gen­er­al sec­re­tary Oral Saun­ders.

Saun­ders em­pha­sised his team’s com­mit­ment to the mem­ber­ship, con­trast­ing it with the ap­proach of the in­cum­bents.

“Mem­bers will have the op­por­tu­ni­ty to speak di­rect­ly to us, rather than vir­tu­al­ly, and we will ag­gres­sive­ly ad­dress ne­go­ti­a­tions to bring re­lief to every sin­gle pub­lic of­fi­cer. That is what they de­mand,” he said.

He con­tin­ued, “Any­one stand­ing in the po­si­tion of PSA pres­i­dent and say­ing they will not ne­go­ti­ate with the in­di­vid­u­als who have the au­thor­i­ty to make changes on be­half of the mem­bers says a lot. We will do the com­plete op­po­site of what is cur­rent­ly hap­pen­ing. We will ne­go­ti­ate in good faith, bring re­lief to the mem­bers, and pre­pare for the new col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing pe­ri­od of 2020 to 2022.”

The last PSA elec­tions took place on Jan­u­ary 19, 2023.

Saun­ders al­so dis­missed claims by in­cum­bent pres­i­dent Leroy Bap­tiste that the Op­po­si­tion Unit­ed na­tion­al Con­gress is be­hind his cam­paign.

“As a mem­ber in my orig­i­nal ca­pac­i­ty, I was very hurt be­cause I un­der­stand the dis­as­trous na­ture of par­ti­san pol­i­tics in a pub­lic sec­tor union. Such pol­i­tics con­tra­dict the Civ­il Ser­vice Act and the Con­sti­tu­tion, which man­date that unions re­main apo­lit­i­cal,” Saun­ders said.

An­oth­er for­mer PSA ex­ec­u­tive, Nixon Cal­len­der, filed nom­i­na­tions to lead the Unit­ed Team Sen­tinel slate. Cal­len­der de­scribed the nom­i­na­tion process as smooth and ex­pressed con­fi­dence in the up­com­ing elec­tions.

“Our aim and ob­jec­tive is to de­fend the in­ter­ests of our mem­bers with­in the frame­work of our reg­is­tered pur­pose. Ven­tur­ing dan­ger­ous­ly out­side that frame­work and in­to main­stream pol­i­tics is where Leroy and I dif­fer sig­nif­i­cant­ly. We are clear on our stance,” Cal­len­der said.

He added, “From 2013, 2017, 2020, and now in 2024, pub­lic of­fi­cers must ac­tive­ly en­gage with the or­gan­i­sa­tion. The on­ly way to achieve set­tled wage ne­go­ti­a­tions, com­plete the job eval­u­a­tion ex­er­cise, and ad­dress is­sues at the Ser­vice Com­mis­sion and Equal Op­por­tu­ni­ty Com­mis­sion is through a change in lead­er­ship.”

Cal­len­der urged the 4,500 pub­lic of­fi­cers and union mem­bers to cast their votes to bring about mean­ing­ful change and re­solve the union’s out­stand­ing is­sues.

Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed Bap­tiste but he did not con­firm whether the in­cum­bent team had filed nom­i­na­tions. He said the elec­tions com­mit­tee will re­lease the of­fi­cial list of can­di­dates in due course.