A new era in the history of the St Lucia Civil Service Association may be about to unfold, following Wednesday elections to the executive.
For nearly two years the CSA has been embroiled in internal warfare that has been tinged with party politics. In that time, it has lost the services of the once highly respected president Mary Isaac, who has entered the political arena by aligning herself with the opposition United Workers Party.
Although observers were quick to point out that Isaac’s action was not the only instance when members of the CSA executive dabbled in party politics, it nevertheless prompted the birth of a new pressure unit called “ Save our Union” that took offence at her action and called for her removal from office.
Under pressure, Isaac resigned as president and took up the position of secretary which she later relinquished ending her run as an officer of the Union.
It appears that there were several persons in the CSA who were genuinely concerned about the state of the Union and threw their hats into the ring, vying for places on the new executive.
Interested parties went as far as presenting a full slate of candidates to fill all the positions on the executive and openly lobbied the membership for support. For the first time in the Union’s history, 35 persons were nominated to fill the 10 positions on the executive.
Team CSA, as it was called, published a manifesto setting out its agenda for the CSA. It promised to challenge amendments to the 1967 Pensions Act which it said had created “inequality and inequity for some of its members”.
It was clear too that Team CSA intended to adopt a tough stand in its dealings with government over pay and conditions of service for civil servants, vowing never to accept a three year wage freeze proposed by the government as the old executive had done. They also vowed to stop any government cutting jobs in the service in the name of public sector reform or modernization or to address “fiscal deficits that we did not cause”.
But Team CSA failed on election day and not even its standard bearer outgoing president Cletus Cyril was elected. Other members of the old executive too were bypassed in the elections.
Instead, civil servants ushered in a bright new face, Yvonne Edwin into the presidency. She too had demonstrated her desire to bring change to the organization, declaring that partisan politics had destroyed the union to the extent that issues that matter for the development of members were being forsaken by the executive.
For instance, the 37 year old Department of Fisheries employee pointed to the fact that negotiations for a new collective agreement for 2016-19 had not yet started while the old agreement was yet to be signed.
Edwin amassed 478 votes to beat out her closest competitor Rock Jean by 195 votes in a four cornered race.
The new executive is as follows: Edwin (president); Samuel Eudoxie (first vice president), edging out his closest rival Thecla Goodman (194) by five votes; Lisa Goodman (second vice president) won over her closet rival Samuel Eudoxie (191) by 114 votes.
Mathew Brandford is the third vice president beating out Shani Willie (205) by 28 votes. Bernard Cornibert is the new secretary on the executive winning the post with 348 votes, 81 more than Monica Cyril-Joseph. Chris Fred is the treasurer with 322 votes beating out two other candidates the closet being Gezielle Warrington with 264.
Donovan Denis is the assistant secretary/treasury amassing a whopping 465 votes to beat out Monica Williams (192) and Dalia Phillip (132).
The new trustees are Joseph Michael Lafeuillee, Verna Mondesir and Melissa Tenna Joseph all of whom amassed over 300 votes.
It appears that a new day has dawned in the CSA. Edwin quickly demonstrated her readiness to serve by summoning her first meeting of the new executive the day after the voting.
In attendance was general secretary Wilfred Pierre, a hardened trade unionist who over the past two years has had to battle several attempts to remove him from the various positions he held on the executive.