This is my honest enquiry. Where are the workers’ unions of Papua New Guinea?

We have not heard or seen much about the trade unions speaking up about the rights of workers and many other issues impacting on the lives of our people, including the workers or union members.

The National Doctors Association, Papua New Guinea Nurses Association and PNG Energy Workers Union seem to be the only ones speaking out about concerns within their professions and employment sectors every now and then. But not the rest of the unions.

The unions used to be very active and vocal in the early 2000s and back. Those were the days the PNG economy was comparatively small, population was less than the eight million-plus we have today and socio-economic problems were less acute than what we face today as a nation. Yet the unions were so vocal back then.

But why is the silence? Have the unions lived past their use-by dates? What has triggered the decline in trade unionism in PNG? Has social media taken over their roles as collective entities to speak up for with is correct, right and just for the workers and the general populace of the country?

Is it reflective of the decline in trade unionism in other more developed jurisdictions in the world like the United States of America and Australia?

Whatever it is, there is a vacuum in the voices of reason that the trade unions were best known for along with other entities such as the university student body and the Christian churches.

I remember the great battles the unions fought in the public domain for the rights of the workforce and on issues of national importance and of concern to the welfare of our people in the early 2000s, throughout 1990s and back.

It is so unfortunate that this great voices of reason and respect for what is right and equitable are now history. Some would say, extinct.

The university student movement is another for voice of reason and respect that is all but extinct. Some in our midst were vocal against the university students when they did speak up and walked-down the streets of Port Moresby in protest over national issues they felt strongly about and considered of national importance.

The critics of the students’ movement often accused the students of not getting their priorities right as young scholars and delving into issues that are best left to the National Parliament and other entities such as the trade unions.

The critics of student activism were right at one level – that students must concentrate on their education and become somebody and replace those leaders in the public and private sectors they and the public had been criticizing.

The critics were also not correct when considering the rights of university students as citizens and young intellectuals to be vocal about issues that matter to them, their families, communities and the

nation at large.

The last time the university student movement came out loudly was in 2016 when they called on the then Prime Minister Peter O’Neill to resign over a number of claims of impropriety in the handling of national affairs under his leadership. Unlike some of the previous student-led protests, the 2016 protest was found to be backed by sectarian political interests in the shadows, which also left one student from the Southern Highlands Province dead in the aftermath.

The manner in which the sectarian political factions out-sourced their political muckraking to the largely innocent student population severely undermined the independent voices of reason of the students. The political moonlighting within the student body in 2016 was a poisoned chalice that left a trail of destruction in its wake with student leaders reprimanded and charged and or suspended by the universities. A number of the student leaders were not allowed to graduate and the Student Representative Council of the University PNG was suspended for an indefinite period.

The 2016 drama has essentially silenced and killed off the once independent voices of reason that was student activism for the foreseeable future.

It is disconcerting that the voices of reason of the workers’ unions and the student body are all but non-existent in our public discourse nowadays.

They were the two most important groups because they were made up of the intellectuals of our country that could understand issues and speak out on behalf of those that could not, who tend to be the majority in PNG.

As the silence of the unions and university students remains, there are many problems that are not been addressed or given attention they deserve by government and other authorities.

Here are two related issues that somebody needs to seriously give a thought and speak out against and ensure the powers-that-be in government can address them.

The first issue is the influx of foreigners especially from Asia who are doing work that was previously set aside for Papua New Guineans. Jobs like shop keeper or till attendant and truck driving were once considered as jobs reserved for Papua New Guineans but not anymore. Asians are doing these work nowadays. Who is or will address this problem? Would university students speak out about it through their student unions? Where are the unions’ voices in this regard.

The second issue is the so-called foreign investors from Asia, who with the understanding of their PNG collaborators, are grabbing land and properties on State land where in many cases by displacing Papua Guineans.

Is the business interest of the Asian investor more important than the welfare of citizens that are displaced when a bulldozer gets in clears land that is already occupied Papua New Guineans?

Who is going to stand up and speak on issues of national importance affecting our people like the two I mentioned immediately above when the independent voices of reason are silent in this country. Papua

New Guineans better take this serious: A Papua New Guinean cannot go to another man’s country and mess around with their laws, grab land and do whatever he likes.

Such a Papua New Guinean will be promptly charged and even jailed. We have one country that we must jealously guard. This calls for the voices of reason to speak out and educate our people and even our leaders in politics, bureaucracies, the churches, suburbs and in the villages.