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By Fawwaz Baktee
Workers will remain at the core of the Labour Movement’s work as it innovates, said NTUC Secretary-General Ng Chee Meng on 15 October 2019 at the NTUC National Delegates’ Conference (NDC).
The two-day NDC also saw NTUC set a target of 1.5 million members by 2025. However, NTUC said that it will be happy to hit the 1.5 million mark by 2030. This will enable it to continue to be a representative voice of workers and a credible partner of the Government.
To achieve the target, union delegates committed to three areas where the Labour Movement needs to innovate – the union business model, membership model and training model.
It will be challenging for the current union business model to remain as it is, given the changes happening in Singapore and the world, said Mr Ng in his speech to over 1,000 delegates and observers on the first day.
“We need to innovate and expand our thinking, explore new possibilities, embrace new experiments and try out new ways of doing things on the ground,” he said.
Mr Ng cited the Banking and Financial Services Union [BFSU] as an example of how a union can evolve with the times.
“This [BFSU] is a union we formed. This is a merged union between a traditional union and the Singapore fintech profession. By putting these two groups of people together, we see a rejuvenation and new purpose – an integrated purpose to bring in new members to continue to be relevant in the banking and financial industry,” he said.
He also urged union leaders to think of digital possibilities instead of only using digital platforms. One suggestion was to set up digital unions.
“As we all know, all of us have become digital natives. We can’t do without our phones. Can we extend our possibilities and think about digital unions complementing our traditional brick-and-mortar unions? I think we can, and we must innovate. Otherwise, we will be left behind, not only foregoing new opportunities but if we don't organise, I think we will fade into obsolescence,” said Mr Ng.
Besides structure, Mr Ng also said that the Labour Movement must look at new ways of protecting workers.
According to Mr Ng, many PMEs in their 40s and 50s are worried about retrenchment.
“Are the numbers large? No. But are the anxieties high? Yes. We in the Labour Movement can see this emerging problem. Can we rethink our protection model to go upstream – partner our employers and see how we can go into the pre-retrenchment phase to help our workers? I think we can,” he said.
Mr Ng proposed setting up a taskforce to look into the challenge and offer solutions to reduce the window between retrenchment and placement.
Doing so will help workers reduce anxiety, ensure better job placements, and help companies that are looking to reduce costs to hiring and retrenchment, added Mr Ng.
Mr Ng also urged delegates to explore the idea of innovating the Labour Movement’s membership model to include a family membership that looks at the life cycle needs of the workers.
He cited the example of a double-sandwiched family – a typical working-class family that has ageing parents and children to care for.
“For these members, can we rethink how we can comprehensively reposition ourselves to be a one-stop convenience, a one-stop-membership service for them? The Labour Movement will have to think about this and see how we can partner our Government to ease the issues of an ageing population, ease the burdens of the double-sandwiched Singaporeans and hopefully, encourage more babies as well,” said Mr Ng.
Touching on innovating the training model, Mr Ng said that the Labour Movement has already started on this with the company training committees.
“The critical pace of technology change means more disruption and continual learning is required to keep up with technology and hopefully, upskill to maintain a good trajectory of wage increases for workers,” he said.
Mr Ng believes the CTCs will create a win-win situation for both the companies and the workers. The initiative will also strengthen the partnership of bilateral co-operation, productivity and make workers’ work prospects better. Union leaders must push workers to act, he added.
“While we innovate at the institutional level, ultimately, workers must take charge and must take responsibility for our own learning … I think all of us have to play our part to step forward, take action. So that we can go on this learning journey together. It is not good enough to just believe that it is the right thing to do. Let’s go out and do it right. Take action, act upon our convictions, communicate, so that we can encourage people around us,” he added.
Pictured from Left: NTUC Secretary-General Ng Chee Meng with NTUC President Mary Liew.
