Duke: Govt wants to contract out Judiciary workers

PUBLIC Services Association president Watson Duke has accused Government of seeking to “contract-out” Judiciary workers and called on judges to join in daily protest action.

He was speaking yesterday with the media outside the Hall of Justice, Port of Spain as a group of Judiciary workers continued protest action from last week regarding a restructuring exercise. Duke said the Judiciary’s response to a question from Newsday court editor Jada Loutoo was that no one will be terminated. “But they also went on to say that 73 per cent of the workers are without tenure (the Judiciary said 62 per cent) and without permanence. They also went on to say that come September 1 they will abolish all positions against which no one is recorded as permanent.

“Which means of the 800 persons working Judiciary they will abolish about 600 positions. The other 200 will be told to go back to Service Commission, they will have to take no pay leave and apply for a contract position in the Judiciary.”

He said the hope of the action is to send a strong signal to all of TT that workers are committed to protecting their jobs.

“This is not about politics; it is about bread and butter issues. And we the working class will do everything to protect that monthly salary. Even if it means we have to go in the jail and sleep for our rights we are prepared to do that.” He accused the PNM of wanting to bring in their own staff to “lock up whosoever they want to lock up.”

Duke also urged judges to join the protests. “We are calling upon the judges who say they love justice to really come out and take a stand for justice in this country. Because there is no other jurisdiction in the Commonwealth where the administration of justice are all contract employees.”

He said for the rest of the week workers will spend an hour of silent protest from 9am and if anyone asks, to say they are “meditating.”

“We want to see whether the courts will go on without us or they need to wait on us.” Opposition Senator Gerald Ramdeen also told the media when the Attorney General brought legislation to the Parliament in The Criminal Division Bill he (Ramdeen) raised the issue that the independence of the Judiciary would be compromised.

“Because you are giving the power to hire and fire to one particular person and that is a very dangerous situation.”

He recalled last week when the question was asked of the AG how many people are going to be fired at the Judiciary he responded “zero.” Newsday contacted Attorney General Faris Al-Rawi via telephone and was asked to call back but other calls went unanswered.