By NTUC This Week Team
Following President Tony Tan’s opening address in Parliament on 15 January 2016 where he announced the Government’s priorities, policies and programmes for the next five years, various Ministries issued their addenda the following week outlining their plans for this term of Government.
From 25 to 29 January 2016, Parliament debated on the President’s opening address. On the Labour front, six Members of Parliament (MPs) spoke on various issues pertaining to different worker groups and their future in Singapore.
Mr Melvin Yong and Mr Desmond Choo – both first term parliamentarians – opened the stage for their fellow Labour MPs when they gave their maiden speeches on the first day. They touched on the topics of Tripartism and young workers respectively.
They were followed by Mr Ang Hin Kee, who touched on freelancers; Mr Zainal Sapari, who spoke on rank-and-file workers; Mr Patrick Tay, who gave his views on Professionals, Managers and Executives; and Mr Heng Chee How, who addressed the concerns of mature workers.
Future of Young Workers
25 January 2016 – Labour Member of Parliament and NTUC Director (Progresseive Wage Model), Industrial Relations Department Desmond Choo urged the Government and employers to put in place structures that best allow millennials and young workers to succeed amidst a restructuring and renewing economy.
According to Mr Choo, employers play a key role in helping young workers become future-ready. Also touching on the issue of raising families, Mr Choo said that millennials not only want to succeed in their careers, but also in their family life.
Mr Choo proposed several recommendations to the House:
• Create a stronger nexus between schools and the workplace
Ensure initiatives such as the Education Ministry’s Education and Career Guidance Counsellors,
e-career.sg portal and the Individual Learning Portfolio (ILP) are well-synced to avoid duplication and
enhance their awareness and usage.
Tap on the inventiveness and dynamism of corporate volunteers to better prepare students for the
evolving workplace.
Government agencies should work closely with unions and U Associates to give young workers access
to networks and resources.
Beyond the Earn and Learn Programmes, incentivise companies to provide more work experience,
apprenticeship and internship opportunities.
•Employers should scan the business environment
Manpower Ministry should consider further measures to help companies – especially Small Medium
Enterprises (SME) – that find it difficult to implement skills and career ladders.
Employers should adopt outcome-based mindsets and allow for flexible work arrangements.
•Help young workers succeed in family life
Afford mothers a legislated right to request for eight weeks of Flexible Work Arrangements on top of
their 16-week maternity leave.
The National Population and Talent Division to consider further moves to improve the paternity leave
take-up rate.
Strengthening Tripartism
25 January 2016 - Labour Member of Parliament and NTUC Director (Field), Industrial Relations
Department Melvin Yong touched on the importance of tripartism and suggested several ways for
the Government, employers and unions to continue building on it. He said that for tripartism to be
successful, there must be mutual trust and a ‘give and take’ understanding between all parties. Each
party must also be strong and representative of its constituents.
To achieve this, Mr Yong made this key suggestion:
Build on sectoral tripartism
•A one-size-fits-all approach at the national level may no longer fully address the issues faced by the
respective industries.
•Sectoral tripartism can also play an important role to help workers enhance their employability
through continuous learning.
•Employers can leverage on sectoral collaborations to create higher value-added and better paying
jobs.
An Eye on Freelancers
26 January 2016 – Labour Member of Parliament and NTUC Assistant Secretary-General Ang Hin
Kee highlighted the emergence of freelancers amidst a dynamic, fast-changing economy and
evolving job front.
Mr Ang shared with the house how freelancers are fast becoming a distinct worker segment. A
conservative estimate of freelancers in the workforce is 200,000, with numbers expected to
increase, hence he called for them to be recognised and supported.
Mr Ang elaborated on these three areas:
•Change society’s mindset
The employment landscape has changed, and society needs to move away from the past notion of
what defines a good job, and a stable income.
Freelance work ought to be viewed as a respectable vocation that is part of the new employment
landscape.
•New talent source for service buyers
Freelancers are a source of ready talent which companies looking for new ways to do business and
reduce costs can tap on.
Buyers should accord freelancers the same respect and treatment as they would a business
partner.
Priority must be to learn how to tap on the different capabilities out there, and treat freelancers fairly
to achieve a win-win situation.
•Government to tailor policies
While there are good schemes to help working Singaporeans, some of them may need to be
reviewed to consider the needs of freelancers. It is timely to tailor policies to be more inclusive and
benefit all worker groups.
Helping Low Wage Workers
26 January 2016 - Noting that the President’s call to develop a caring nation and renew our economy resonates strongly with the Labour Movement, Labour Member of Parliament and NTUC Assistant Secretary-General Zainal Sapari highlighted the numerous initiatives and programmes that the Labour Movement introduced over the years to transform thousands of workers’ lives.
However, he added: “Singapore has changed remarkably over the past 50 years and the Labour Movement is presented with new challenges as we continue to grow. The business environment is evolving rapidly.
“Technological advancement, globalisation of jobs, shorter product cycles and future manufacturing demand us to think out of the box to ensure the Singaporean workforce can adapt to these changes and our economy remains competitive.”
Mr Zainal proposed some recommendations to help low-wage workers:
•Make NWC guidelines mandatory in the lower percentile
The dollar quantum wage increments in the National Wages Council’s recommendations should be
made mandatory for employees in the 20th and 30th percentile, in terms of basic salary.
Alternatively, the Government could explore making this mandatory in the cleaning, security and
landscape industries by factoring these as part of the licensing conditions.
•Government to take the lead to help low-wage workers
The Government can play a greater role in encouraging their service providers with many low-wage
workers to give Annual Increments and Annual Wage Supplement.
Government procurement officers can be more worker-centric by being more proactive to look into
the welfare accorded to the outsourced workers by their potential service providers.
•Widen reach of Progressive Wage Model
The Progressive Wage Model (PWM) should be introduced to other sectors apart from cleaning,
security and landscape to better the livelihoods of more low-wage workers.
All Government-linked companies should lead by insisting all major projects and tendering should
incorporate PWM for the workers.
•Use more of public-private partnership
Venture further into employing a Public Private Partnership model as another tool to address
widening income gaps, with greater emphasis on the human resource practices of the partners from
the private sectors.
Future of PMEs
28 January 2016 – Labour Member of Parliament and NTUC Assistant Secretary-General Patrick Tay
put forward several proposals on how more can be done for Professionals, Managers and
Executives (PMEs), a group of workers who will form the majority of the workforce within the next
two decades.
Mr Tay, who is also NTUC Alignment Director for PMEs, recognised the likelihood of higher
unemployment and PME redundancies, and lower employment creation within the next few years.
In his Parliament speech, Mr Tay highlighted the strengthening of the 3Cs – a Singaporean Core,
the Connection of PMEs to jobs, and the Careers of PMEs – as the way forward.
Mr Tay urged several things to help PMEs:
•Strengthen the Singaporean Core
Impose a foreign PME dependency ratio – similar to the one for work permits and S passes – for
sectors that are weak in the Singaporean Core, or show weak commitment to implementing it.
Impose stricter Employment Pass application conditions and requirements for these companies with
a weak Singaporean Core.
Move towards a Singapore PME-led and foreigner PME-lean economy for locals to fully exploit the
labour market and realise their potential.
•Better connect PMEs to jobs
Use jobs portals like the National Jobs Bank to give insights of in-demand jobs and identify the gaps
in supply. This will help to solve the mismatch of skills and jobs, and marry aspiration, passion and
skills with quality jobs.
Change the mindset and expectations of employers of hiring mature PMEs through the Career
Support Programme (CSP), which gives employers wage subsidies for PMEs aged 40 and above.
Expand the CSP to all PMEs. The wage subsidies will better ensure PMEs will have jobs in the
longer term.
•Strengthen the careers of PMEs
Arm PMEs with the right skills, put them in the right jobs with the right expectations so they can
embark on the right career.
Promote skills-oriented learning from primary school to adult learning. Upskilling, deep-skilling, re-
skilling and second-skilling will keep PMEs future-ready and future-proof.
Employer support and the individual’s own initiative will be vital in inculcating a culture of lifelong
learning.
Value in Mature Workers
29 January 2016 – Seasoned Member of Parliament and NTUC Deputy Secretary-General Heng
Chee How raised in Parliament the issue of Singapore’s maturing population and the local
workforce. He urged the Government to put in place a mindset change and more policies to address
the issue of the ageing workforce.
He also urged employers and industries to see the value in older workers and tap on their vast
experience.
Mr Heng surfaced several topics and recommendations in Parliament:
•Tap on technology
Tap on ever-improving assistive technology, and world class age management and job design
practices to enable productive employment regardless of age.
•Look to the ageing population to address manpower needs
Companies and industries should tap intelligently on older workers who have valuable assets,
instead of losing them through retirement or short-sighted retrenchment. If not, it will cause a loss in
important institutional memory, knowledge and expertise.
Human Resource policies, and systems and training opportunities must also adapt to evolving
realities. It will be smart decision-making for business continuity and competitiveness to invest in
older workers' training and development.
•Working beyond 67
Workers should be given safeguards should they want to continue working beyond 67, which will be
in the best interest of both the worker and the company.
•Retirement adequacy
CPF contribution rate ceilings, differences and interest rates should be periodically reviewed to
ensure they keep up and align with changes in nominal income, and labour and money market
conditions.
There should be a deeper study on the apportionment of CPF savings between the various uses, to
ensure that the original and primary purpose of the CPF scheme to help strengthen retirement
adequacy is sufficiently assured.
Examine the experience of lubricating the monetisation of property assets in retirement.
