Problem about new group health plan

THE EDITOR: This is a call for help from the legal minds of this blessed nation. We know there are very good lawyers out there, who can interpret the law and know when individuals or organisations are pretending they are doing public officers a great good, when all they do is to break the very laws of Trinidad and Tobago, Civil Service Regulation chapter V part III, No 51, which states: “On no account shall money be deducted from an officer’s salary without prior notice in writing to him of not less than one month.”

On Friday March 26, 2004 the Public Service Association (PSA) ad for the new group health plan was on page 19 of the Tobago News. If that was our written notice in a newspaper only four days before the end of the month, then deductions made from my salary without my permission, somebody needs to tell us, who is guarding the guards here. What happens to the hundreds of public officers who already have similar health plans from other insurance companies? How many health plans can one person have under the laws of Trinidad and Tobago? Who came up with this new scheme? Who will be the one we have to sue for all the hardship and pain? The Government or the PSA for breaking the law and failing to protect us, neglecting to write to us individually and letting us know what was going to happen.

I hope they are not going to tell us that it was discussed at Executive level or, General Council Level, and ratified by the delegates of conference. (So that is enough notice). I say no, it is my salary and the law states that it’s my property and if you want to enter, write me, and ask me, end of discussion. So Mr Legal mind out there do us this big favour, and tell us if this backward procedure is the way forward; maybe public officers need to start thinking like the doctors and form another trade union in the public service, so that (in the future) things like this would never happen again.

THOMAS PHILLIPS
Tobago