PSU Waiting on Labour Response in Danini Contreras Dispute
Marvin Blades
On April thirtieth the Public Service Union sent a letter to the Ministry of Labour asking for intervention in the appointment of Danini Contreras as Director of Drug Inspectorate. Now when Labour gets involved it’s usually because of a dispute, and it seems that the Ministry didn’t see one in the appointment. So the Labour Commissioner wrote back to the P.S.U. for clarification. That’s the last we’d heard about the matter, but today P.S.U. President Marvin Blades told us that they have written back and are now waiting for the matter to be resolved, as is the obligation of the Ministry of Labour.
Marvin Blades, President, PSU
“When we sent him the letter we stated what the dispute was with regard to our members in the Pharmacists Association and the Ministry of Health which was represented by the CEO. However, the Ministry wrote back in the person of the Commissioner stating that we did not clearly define in his opinion what the dispute was. So we decided to give him the benefit of the doubt and look at it, so we decided that we would clearly outline the entire incident in regards to the Pharmacists’ Association and the Ministry of Health and so we explained what were the events and we even attached the letters that we sent to the CEO and we even took out the sections in the Act that clearly states that a dispute is between a person or government and a trade union in regards to any person’s employment or terms and conditions. We are awaiting an answer, but as you know in the dispute in essential services, it clearly states that he has twenty-one days to address this issue. It did not say twenty-one days, as the Minister keeps saying, to answer. It clearly states that the Minister must address it adequately within twenty-one days or send it to a tribunal, right, and if it doesn’t the union and its members reserve the right to go to industrial action.”
That deadline of twenty-one days has elapsed since the first letter was sent. But Blades says they made the decision to start the countdown after the second letter was sent one week ago.
