He was the only PAP member to win in the 1964 Malaysian general election, winning the Bangsar constituency, near Kuala Lumpur. This contrasted with his 1955 election defeat. He stayed in Malaysia after the Separation, forming the Democratic Action Party, but returned to Singapore to lead the National Trades Union Congress, the labour union movement which he helped establish in 1961. He and P.P. Narayanan were advocates for the concerns of developing countries and voiced their concerns at the ICFTU as they saw economic and social policy documents that were biased towards industrialized nations. They wanted greater attention paid to extreme poverty, unemployment and underdevelopment of their countries. These proposals were accepted and later reflected in the work of ICFTU's Economic and Social Committee.