At the National Delegates’ Conference on 6 December 2011, NTUC Secretary-General Lim Swee Say recounted on the Labour Movement’s achievements, and explained how the Labour Movement has been on track for the past four years with its Labour Movement 2011 vision.
He explained that it has successfully repositioned itself to be an inclusive Labour Movement for All Collars, All Ages and All Nationalities (All CAN) of workers, and has made encouraging progress for its workers, union members and unions through keeping unemployment rates low, increasing unionisation rates and introducing the ‘Concentrate and Dominate’ membership strategy and the ‘3 Flow’ leadership model.
Under the Labour Movement 2015 vision, SG Lim highlighted that real wage increase continues to be an
important element to the Labour Movement. Real wage increase has slowed down in the past five years – at 0.9 per cent, it is lower than the growth of the five years before that of 1.7 per cent.
SG Lim said: “To have broad based real wage increase, we need to have broad based growth. I agree that we should never go for ‘growth at all costs’ but we should also not forget the high costs of slow or no growth.”
He cautioned not to assume that we will always have enough jobs and real wage increase as there are external and internal factors that affect growth.
Biting Three Bullets To Grow Real Wages
Even though there is no magic bullet when it comes to creating enough jobs and sustaining broad based real wage increase, SG Lim highlighted that the Labour Movement will have to bite the bullet in three ways to achieve this aim.
Firstly, NTUC must continue to be Cheaper Better Faster and contribute to speed up the transformation of the Singapore economy. SG Lim said: “We do not have big market or cheap labour. To survive, we need to be more productive for our products and services to be cheaper. We have to be more skillful for our workforce to be better, and more innovative for our businesses to be faster.”
Despite the need to speed up the transformation of the economy, businesses cannot keep turning to foreign workers as a solution. Instead, they should make better use of every worker to be a step ahead of global competitors.
Secondly, the Singaporean Core in our economy and workforce must be strengthened. In sectors where the Singaporean Core is not ready, SG Lim advised the usage of global manpower to meet current needs without losing sight of nurturing the local core. “With a strong local core, it will help us to deepen the roots of global corporations in Singapore,” he said. More importantly, it will also enhance the mutual respect and acceptance between local and global manpower.
Finally, NTUC must strive to provide better jobs for all workers in all sectors. SG Lim shared examples of how the Labour Movement has helped a spectrum of workers such as contract and casual low-wage workers, back-to-work women, middle-aged PMEs and mature workers in their job searches and skills upgrading.
Although it will be tough to offer better jobs for all workers in Singapore, SG Lim encouraged: “But we can get closer to this ideal world, sector by sector, year by year, if we work together hard enough.”
Need For Pervasive Tripartism
SG Lim also highlighted that there is a need to forge more pervasive tripartism throughout the whole Labour Movement, Government and economy to realise the vision of better jobs for all.
Said SG Lim: “With pervasive tripartism, we can stand a better chance of creating enough growth, enough jobs, enough productivity gains to achieve a broad based real wage increase for all our young and old, high and low workers.”
He added that here in Singapore, workers can dream of better jobs because of the support of the tripartite partners who can make tripartism for all a reality.
Said SG Lim: “… people out there see a world of rising unemployment, they ask why? Here in Singapore, we dream of a world of better jobs for all and ask why not? With diversity in unity, and unity in diversity, the tripartite partners can make tripartism for all, all unions, agencies and sectors, a reality,” said SG Lim.
And as the Labour Movement begins its LM 2015 journey, it looks forward to continue its close relationship with the Government and the economy.
Said SG Lim: “We look forward to a closer and more pervasive partnership with the whole of the Government and the whole of the economy as we strive for LM2015, a vision for better jobs for all.”
