SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) Pres­i­dent Wat­son Duke may find him­self in hot wa­ter with the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) fol­low­ing his re­cent ap­point­ment as deputy Chief Sec­re­tary of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA).

WASA’s board and man­age­ment strong­ly be­lieve Duke’s new full-time job with the THA, is a breach of its Col­lec­tive Agree­ment (CA) be­tween the Au­thor­i­ty and PSA.

Duke, who is cur­rent­ly em­ployed with WASA, has been grant­ed no-pay leave by the Au­thor­i­ty to car­ry out union du­ties but his re­cent THA ap­point­ment has been caus­ing a furore in dif­fer­ent quar­ters.

The new post could now trig­ger WASA to ei­ther call on Duke to as­sume his re­spon­si­bil­i­ties as As­sis­tant Man­ag­er of Em­ploy­ee Re­la­tions or ten­der his res­ig­na­tion, as the CA does not al­low him to hold down two full-time jobs.

“WASA can re­scind the no-pay leave grant­ed to Duke. So, he would now have to de­cide whether or not he wants his job at WASA or whether or not he wants to be deputy Chief Sec­re­tary. He cer­tain­ly can­not do the two jobs,” a source at WASA said.

In ad­di­tion, the source said, Duke’s new po­si­tion is a breach of the terms and con­di­tions for this leave of ab­sence.

If Duke de­cides to keep his full-time work in the THA, the source ex­plained two things can hap­pen.

“He can be ac­cused of aban­don­ing his job at WASA... and sec­ond­ly he would no longer be on full-time union du­ties.”

How­ev­er, if Duke steps down as PSA head, he would al­so have no choice but to re­lin­quish his po­si­tion at WASA.

“He would have to de­cide...it will put him in a co­nun­drum.”

As an em­ploy­ee of WASA, Duke would be en­ti­tled to ben­e­fits based on his years of ser­vice.

Con­cerned about this new de­vel­op­ment, WASA’s board has sought le­gal ad­vice on the mat­ter.

“It’s an is­sue WASA’s board and man­age­ment will have to ad­dress. Fail­ure to do so would be con­sid­ered a dere­lic­tion of du­ty,” the source added.

PSA’s gen­er­al sec­re­tary Su­san Gray, in a let­ter dat­ed De­cem­ber 17, 2020 to then WASA’s chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fice Alan Poon King sought a “re­quest for time-off for in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions pur­pos­es” for Duke.

The let­ter, ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia, ad­vised that in ac­cor­dance with Ar­ti­cle 37 of the 2011-2013 sub­sist­ing CA be­tween WASA and the PSA, that leave of ab­sence for “trade union pur­pos­es is re­quest­ed for Duke” for the pe­ri­od De­cem­ber 15, 2020 to De­cem­ber 14, 2024.”

Gray stat­ed the re­quest was a con­se­quence of the re­sults of the as­so­ci­a­tion’s na­tion­al elec­tions held on De­cem­ber 14 and the elec­tions of Duke’s to the po­si­tion of pres­i­dent.

How­ev­er, on March 9, WASA’s then-ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor Dr Lenox Sealy wrote Duke about his “un­ten­able na­ture of the in­def­i­nite time off for union’s busi­ness” and asked him to re­sign from WASA.

Sealy in a fol­low-up let­ter in­formed Duke that his con­tin­ued em­ploy­ment with the PSA was “not in the best in­ter­est of WASA” and his port­fo­lio as Mi­nor­i­ty Leader of the THA was a con­flict of in­ter­est, based on the Civ­il Ser­vice Act of T&T.

Duke chal­lenged Sealy to fire him.

He al­so re­tained at­tor­ney Im­ran Ali who in­formed Sealy there was no ba­sis for Duke to be dis­missed and such ac­tion would be harsh, op­pres­sive and amount to a crim­i­nal of­fence and un­con­sti­tu­tion­al.

Sealy in an April 29 let­ter to Duke, re­tract­ed his warn­ing let­ters and al­so grant­ed him leave of ab­sence for four years from WASA with­out pay, in ac­cor­dance with Ar­ti­cle 37 of the CA in or­der for him to at­tend PSA du­ties.

The leave cov­ered the pe­ri­od De­cem­ber 15, 2020, to De­cem­ber 14, 2024.

For 11 years Duke has been grant­ed no pay leave by WASA to con­duct union du­ties.

As of De­cem­ber 2024, Duke would have amassed 15 years leave at WASA.

The four years Sealy grant­ed Duke would take his leave of ab­sence from WASA to 15 years.

Ar­ti­cle 37 of the sub­sist­ing CA be­tween WASA and the PSA states, “An em­ploy­ee who is cer­ti­fied by the As­so­ci­a­tion as an elect­ed mem­ber of the ex­ec­u­tive of the as­so­ci­a­tion shall on mak­ing an ap­pli­ca­tion be grant­ed leave of ab­sence with­out pay for the pe­ri­od of term of of­fice,” and “An em­ploy­ee who is cer­ti­fied by the as­so­ci­a­tion as hav­ing been se­lect­ed for full-time em­ploy­ment with the as­so­ci­a­tion shall be grant­ed, on mak­ing an ap­pli­ca­tion, leave of ab­sence with­out pay up to a pe­ri­od of three years. This pe­ri­od may be ex­tend­ed at the dis­cre­tion of the au­thor­i­ty up­on fur­ther ap­pli­ca­tion and cer­ti­fi­ca­tion of the as­so­ci­a­tion.”

There are four cat­e­gories of leave that can be grant­ed to em­ploy­ees in­clud­ing spe­cial leave; leave for trade union busi­ness; re­li­gious rea­sons; and ju­ry ser­vices.

Duke has been serv­ing as PSA pres­i­dent since 2009 and has so far, served three terms in this post­ing.

On Fri­day, new­ly-in­stalled THA Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine an­nounced that Duke was work­ing on sev­er­ing his ties with PSA which would take three months.

Au­gus­tine said Duke need­ed time to en­sure that the PSA’s busi­ness does not fall apart, with the as­so­ci­a­tion al­ready hav­ing an­nounced that he will act as pres­i­dent with­out re­mu­ner­a­tion.

For­mer labour min­is­ter and al­so pre­vi­ous PSA pres­i­dent, Jen­nifer Bap­tiste-Primus said Duke should have re­signed from the PSA af­ter be­ing ap­point­ed deputy Chief Sec­re­tary as the two jobs are full-time po­si­tions.

She said Duke has no le­gal stand­ing to con­tin­ue as the PSA pres­i­dent.

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi al­so weighed in on the mat­ter as he said Duke has to choose be­tween the two roles.

Al-Rawi point­ed out that the law does not al­low Duke to main­tain both jobs.

The de­ci­sion to keep Duke as pres­i­dent fol­low­ing his par­ty’s 14-1 vic­to­ry in the THA elec­tion goes against the PSA con­sti­tu­tion and presents a con­flict of in­ter­est.

Pressed on the mat­ter yes­ter­day, Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les said, “That is a mat­ter be­tween Duke and his em­ploy­er. I trust that the em­ploy­er will ad­dress the is­sue at the ap­pro­pri­ate time. My fo­cus is on the trans­for­ma­tion process and pro­vid­ing the coun­try with re­li­able pub­lic util­i­ty ser­vices. Duke and his is­sues don’t oc­cu­py my time and en­er­gy.”

Duke read a What­sApp mes­sage sent to him by Guardian Me­dia on Fri­day but did not re­spond.