By Brianna Bennett

Copyright greaterbelize

Former PSU President Takes Dean Flowers to Court over Missing Pay

Former Public Service Union President Gerald Henry Jr. and current president Dean Flowers are back in court and it’s all about vacation days. Henry says the union owes him for fifty-four days of leave, adding up to more than six thousand dollars. Here’s the backstory: When Henry wrapped up his term in 2020, he says he struck a deal with the Ministry of the Public Service to use his accumulated vacation instead of dipping into union funds. But according to him, that never happened. In fact, he claims about seven thousand dollars was actually deducted from his pay. Now, Henry wants the union to pay up for those unused days, but so far, no luck. We caught up with him today to get the latest on this ongoing dispute.

On the Phone: Gerald Henry Jr., Former President, Public Service Union

“The first position that they took was. I did not have any standing agreement per se with them that there was no regulation within the union itself that spoke to vacation leave by the president. However, after I proceeded to take them to court previously then they decided that, okay, they’re looking at the public service regulations and they applied the public service regulation, right? And now what they did was that they decided that they were only going to pay me what pretty much accumulated to about half the amount stating that the public service regulation states that it’s mandatory for me to take a certain number of days. But like I said, they did not complete the full application of the public service regulations because there’s also the other part to the public service regulations, which says that, the officer in charge of whoever is your boss or your superior, which would, in, in my case it appears in the case of the president of the union would be the council of management, if you are not going on those vacation leave, then they have to be the ones to instruct you to go. And that never did happen in my case And there’s also this section of the public service regulations, which says that even if you terminate me even if you terminate a public officer, that the vacation leave must be paid to that person, right? So if they’re using the public service regulations then they have to use all those sections that apply. You can’t use one just because it supports your narrative.”