The PNG Energy Workers Association has agreed to meet with the PNG Power Limited chief executive officer John Tangit and a representative from the Industrial Registrar’s office tomorrow.
This decision removed a stalemate which arose when union members refused to hear the board members and executives who gathered to receive their petition.
This meeting set for tomorrow morning will be to mediate on the 17.7% salaries increment that was agreed upon as part of a previous agreement signed in 2013 between the union and executives.
Union general secretary Santee Margies says this pay increment has yet to reach their members and the union was caught off guard about why it had taken so long for the payments to be made.
In a standoff today, the union also called for the removal of the board executive director John Mangos, a demand which was brushed aside by the board chairman Larry Andagali who says that PPL was about results and that if Mangos did not perform then he would be removed.
Andagali said that the new stance taken with PPL would be for them all to perform and deliver on their service and results.
He says that all of them from the board down to the linesman would need to pull their weight and be prepared to work and shine to the best of their abilities.
Mangos, he says, had a job to perform as tasked to him and that he would do just that. Andagali says that for so long PPL had been stagnant and needed to be revived and the changes and development needs of the future embraced.
Meantime, workers while still frustrated have all agreed to allow for the meeting to take place but are due to reassemble later tomorrow morning to go over the outcomes of the meeting.
John Mangos in his address this afternoon said that while he would not give unrealistic promises that he would not deliver on, he said he was ready and able to work to get PPL up to par and operational.
He says that he was pushing for many new development initiatives that would help workers and dependents alike.
Andagali called on workers to give them six months to see the changes that would come about as a result of the new and improved more development-driven PPL.
For tonight Margies says that the workers in Port Moresby while on stop work today would also continue their strike action tomorrow until their grievances were addressed.