Derek Achong

Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tions (PSA) Pres­i­dent Wat­son Duke is call­ing on pub­lic ser­vants to utilise Gov­ern­ment’s pro­posed pan­dem­ic leave to­day, but not based on the cri­te­ria sug­gest­ed. 

In a live video on his Face­book pro­file af­ter the spe­cial leave was an­nounced by Labour Min­is­ter Jen­nifer Bap­tiste-Primus, yes­ter­day, Duke ap­peared to call on all pub­lic ser­vants, not just those who could not find su­per­vi­sion for their chil­dren, to claim pan­dem­ic leave to­day. 

“Call to­mor­row pan­dem­ic hol­i­day and when you go write a let­ter and say you were on pan­dem­ic leave. Write a let­ter. Chal­lenge them,” Duke said. 

He sug­gest­ed that such pub­lic ser­vants should use the free time to “pre­pare” their house­holds for the virus. 

Duke de­scribed the pro­posed leave and the guide­lines giv­en to pub­lic ser­vants, State en­ter­pris­es/pri­vate-sec­tor em­ploy­ees as con­fus­ing. 

“As far as I know, guide­lines are not manda­to­ry. They are not law,” Duke said, as he claimed that the Gov­ern­ment had re­neged on their guide­lines on the hir­ing of con­tract em­ploy­ees in the past. 

In par­tic­u­lar, Duke ques­tioned the sug­ges­tion of one par­ent stay­ing home while the oth­er re­port­ing for du­ty. 

“Who is to ver­i­fy that?” Duke said. 

As he claimed that a na­tion­wide shut-down was nec­es­sary to con­tain the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, Duke point­ed to the fact that he al­lowed his staff to stay away from work un­til March 31. 

“The Gov­ern­ment has to know when to sus­pend work,” Duke said. 

He al­so not­ed that the pro­posed pol­i­cy failed to con­sid­er the im­pact on busi­ness­es. 

“The Na­tion­al In­sur­ance Board (NIB) should be pay­ing half the work­ers’ salaries dur­ing this time,” Duke said.  

The To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA)Mi­nor­i­ty Leader claimed that he was in self-im­posed iso­la­tion and prac­tis­ing so­cial dis­tanc­ing. He claimed that he would wait a while be­fore he risks trav­el­ling to To­ba­go.