The new pres­i­dent of the Na­tion­al Union of Gov­ern­ment and Fed­er­at­ed Work­ers (NUGFW), Christo­pher Streete, is urg­ing mem­bers to get more in­volved in the busi­ness of the union.

In his in­au­gur­al speech yes­ter­day, af­ter be­ing sworn in as the new head of the or­gan­i­sa­tion, Streete said, “We en­cour­age every­one to get in­volved in the af­fairs of the union—every one of you. There are things I can do on your be­half, but there are al­so mat­ters that re­quire the in­volve­ment of my ex­ec­u­tive team. How­ev­er, for cer­tain ini­tia­tives that will ben­e­fit you, your ac­tive par­tic­i­pa­tion is es­sen­tial.”

He gave a com­mit­ment to in­clu­sive­ness, sig­nalling a new di­rec­tion for the union.

“We want this four-year pe­ri­od, es­pe­cial­ly dur­ing Car­ni­val sea­son, to be all-in­clu­sive. This ex­ec­u­tive is com­mit­ted to en­sur­ing that the rank and file of this or­gan­i­sa­tion will be all-in­clu­sive for the next four years,” he said.

“Com­rades, we have the priv­i­lege and the op­por­tu­ni­ty to serve a great or­gan­i­sa­tion—one that was es­tab­lished pri­mar­i­ly to look af­ter the wel­fare of the work­ing class and, more gen­er­al­ly, the poor and down­trod­den. That’s our pur­pose.”

He com­mend­ed his pre­de­ces­sor, for­mer pres­i­dent-gen­er­al James Lam­bert, with whom he had served for over 16 years.

“This was not about us; it was about the or­gan­i­sa­tion and its mem­bers’ rep­re­sen­ta­tion. I want to take a mo­ment to thank the for­mer pres­i­dent-gen­er­al, com­rade James Lam­bert, for the 16 years of ded­i­cat­ed ser­vice he has giv­en to this or­gan­i­sa­tion. Com­rade Lam­bert, we are grate­ful for your con­tri­bu­tions. How­ev­er, we must now move for­ward,” he said.

Streete and his 15-mem­ber ex­ec­u­tive were sworn in by elec­tions su­per­vi­sor Lu­na Wright yes­ter­day.

Af­ter sit­ting at the helm for 16 years, Lam­bert was of­fi­cial­ly re­moved as pres­i­dent-gen­er­al fol­low­ing the union’s na­tion­al elec­tions on Mon­day.

The elec­tions marked the first time that three teams com­pet­ed with full 15-can­di­date slates.

Lam­bert re­ceived 1,981 votes, while Streete re­ceived 2,329.

Guardian Me­dia at­tempt­ed to con­tact Lam­bert but calls to his phone went unan­swered.