Minister Asked To Look Closer At Our Development Projects

“I hope a discussion with the Minister will persuade him of the huge benefit our projects bring to some of the most vulnerable groups of people in our region,” the Executive Chair of Unions Aotearoa International Development Trust (UnionAID) Ross Wilson said today.

He was responding to Minister McCully’s comments that “too many programmes are focused on trade union rights in obscure parts of the world”.

“I can only assume that the Minister is referring to our UnionAID project partnerships with Burmese migrant workers on the Thai-Burma border, and with Dalit (untouchable) workers in South India,” Ross Wilson said.

“These projects have enabled very vulnerable groups of workers an opportunity to undertake effective democratic collective activity which has, particularly with the South India project, transformed the lives of their families and communities.”

“UnionAID was established as a charitable trust to provide an aid organization through which the 400,000 union members in New Zealand can help vulnerable workers in developing countries in our region”.

“The many volunteers who are involved in UnionAID are very proud of what we have achieved,” Ross Wilson said. “I feel confident that the Minister will get past his concerns about trade union rights if we can provide him with full information about what these projects are actually achieving.”

ENDS

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