China's leading newspaper, the People's Daily, carried an editorial on Monday, calling for expanding trade unions to better protect working people's legal rights and interests.

The editorial, entitled "Hard Work Creates Beautiful Life", said the government had an imperative task to expand the coverage and improve the cohesiveness of trade unions.

"We have to protect, realize and develop the labor force's legal rights and interests. It is where the reform starts and ends and the basic prerequisite to motivating the working people."

It urged local Communist Party committees and governments to create conditions conducive to trade unions and to guide workers to take the initiative in protecting their own rights as China is at a strategic development stage.

The editorial stressed that the government would continue to rely on the working class and the general public to further develop a work force that faces arduous tasks in the next five years.

"We must implement wholeheartedly the principle of relying on the working class ... the working class, farmers and other laborers, including the intellectuals, are always the fundamental force to push forward China's productivity and all-round social development."

The hardworking spirit of model workers would be promoted to show pride in hard work and aversion of indolence.

The government would work hard to train laborers to transform from a populous country to one boasting of rich human resources, it said.

Source: Xinhua