Duke sends 20 PSA workers on leave

President of the Public Services Association (PSA) Watson Duke says he intends to improve the state of the association, beginning with sending 20 employees on mandatory vacation on Tuesday.

Speaking in a video streamed on the PSA's Facebook page, Duke said the decision to send workers on leave was in keeping with the association's collective agreement with the Banking,Insurance and General Workers Union (BIGWU) to ensure all employees use their vacation time.

Citing the agreement, he said workers were not allowed to carry over leave on a yearly basis and said he was going to "clean up" operations at the union by ensuring members got value for money.

"We have had workers here with 60 days' leave and they have not taken any for the year. We have therefore caused all workers who have leave in excess to go on their leave with effect from today."

He reminded listeners that since its elections the PSA was now led by his Game Changers team, who "made it quite clear that we are concerned about the state of delivery of services to our members. We believe our members are paying money and we must start cleaning and addressing those issues from now."

The executive, he said, would "be running a very tight ship and a very hard ship. We will be putting things in place that when our members come for their M&M, their group health plan money, they should get their money."