Government on Campaign of Intimidation That Will Cost Them

Government on Campaign of Intimidation That Will Cost Them
The Government has embarked on a campaign of intimidation against Public Officers (Civil Servants, Teachers, Police, Fire and Prison Officers) in an attempt to head off a national day of protest against itself on Friday,
Recently, the Public Administration Minister warned public officers that they can be ‘fined $500 and jailed for three months if they stay away from work on Friday”.
Today, the Education Minister (a former President of TTUTA) claimed that legal advice from his Ministry’s lawyers and the Attorney General was that Teachers staying away from work ‘in solidarity’ with other workers ‘would amount to industrial action’.
He went on claiming that if teachers were absent from work, without authorization, on Friday they could be ‘jailed or fined on summary conviction’. Alternatively, Mr. Garcia suggested that such teachers would be guilty of misconduct.
He then announced that any teacher absent from work without authorization on Friday ‘WILL NOT BE PAID’.
A word of warning to these Ministers and their Government:
Neither the Government nor any Minister or any administrator directed by a Minister can legally deduct a cent from any Public Officer or Contract Employee in the public service without due process.
Only a Court of Law can fine or jail anyone, including a worker or public officer.
Even, if the Government succeeds in getting police to charge workers or other public officers for illegal industrial action, they will have to prove that each and every worker or public officer DID IN FACT engage in industrial action with proper evidence.
If Government somehow succeeds in convicting a public officer of illegal industrial action, then based on a Constitution amendment passed by the Government of Basdeo Panday, that public officer will also automatically be guilty of misconduct and tell their Service Commission why they should not be dismissed.
Further, only as a result of disciplinary action can any penalty including deduction from their pay be imposed on any public officer by a Service Commission as a result of disciplinary proceedings in accordance with the Public Service Commission’s Regulations.
NO PUBLIC OFFICER CAN LEGALLY SUFFER ANY DEDUCTION FROM THEIR PAY WITHOUT A DISCIPLINARY PROCESS.
These threats of No Pay to public officers are illegal.
They amount to a terror campaign of intimidation by the Government against it own Employees.
These threats by a parade of Government Ministers will even if carried out will only succeed in costing the Government large sums in compensation to the same public employees who will surely take legal action against Government for their attacks against them.
This state terror campaign against its employees and workers generally is only aimed at trying to avoid the exposure of their anti-worker and anti-democratic character that will come from those whom they were hugging up and supporting in similar actions when another administration was in office up to September 2015.
 
Clyde Weatherhead
A Citizen Fighting for
Democratic Renewal of
Our Society
4 September 2018

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