Aligning goals to strengthen the voice of Papua New Guinean workers will be one of many goals of the new United Labour Party.
The Political Party, launched yesterday in Port Moresby, is the country’s first to align its policies with the Trade Union Congress to improve working conditions as well as creating opportunities in the formal and informal sectors.
“I’m ready to realign and boost yet another movement that understands the working class needs and dreams of the most working PNG families in urban and peri-urban PNG and in rural areas where the vast majority of our workers maintain their traditional links,” said ULP Party Leader and National Planning Minister Sam Basil.
Basil added as the country charts a path to expand the economy through its extractive, agriculture and manufacturing industries, the party will focus to protect the people whose families and lives will be affected.
“I’m building an alliance here to create the platform for a direct link between Waigani and the collective voice of millions of industry workers who will never start a business or leave a multinational company they are loyal to.
We are building the founding for that demographic to protect their wages and income sources so that starting a business may become a realistic option for them one day,” Basil said.
The party has 9 political members including the late Menyamya MP Thomas Pelika.
Other MPs include, Rigo MP Lekwa Gure, Sumkar MP Chris Nangoi, Markham MP Koni Iguan, Rai Coast MP Peter Sapia, Lufa MP Moriape Kavori, Nawaeb MP, Kennedy Wenge, North Waghi MP Dr Fabian Pok, and Kagua Erave MP Wesley Ruminai.
By Stanley Ove Jnr – EMTV NEWS Port Moresby
