Labour Movement promotes family first culture through U Picnic

Touted as the National Trades Union Congress’ (NTUC) largest mass family picnic, U Picnic attracted over 1,000 working families or 5,000 people to the Marina Barrage to celebrate family togetherness. U Picnic was the first-ever and one of the many family-bonding events initiated by NTUC’s U Family and supported by NTUC FairPrice to promote Family First Culture in Singapore.

Home, Heart and Hope

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong at the National Day Rally 2012 had focused on three overarching themes of Home, Heart and Hope. He spoke about creating a Home where Singaporeans want to get married, have children and bring up the next generation. The Labour Movement supports the Prime Minister’s clarion call and encourages Singaporean working parents to dedicate more quality time to their families outside of their busy work schedules. There is no better occasion than U Picnic for families to temporarily cast aside their work and school examination stress, get together and enjoy the company of their loved ones through picnicking.

The Labour Movement agrees with the Prime Minister that Singaporeans could do more to embrace inclusiveness and integrate new residents into our society. Many unions have seen an increase in non-resident members joining them in recent years. Like many other community activities organised by NTUC, U Picnic was an inclusive event that was open to working families and union members regardless of nationality and creed.

“NTUC FairPrice is proud to support the first-ever U Picnic - an event which aims to promote stronger family bonds. This is aligned with FairPrice's own objectives of promoting healthy work-life balance and nurturing family cohesion. As the first supermarket retailer to receive the Businesses for Families Mark, we encourage all to do activities as a family, whether it is doing their grocery shopping or sharing a home-cooked meal together," said Chief Executive Officer of NTUC FairPrice, Mr Seah Kian Peng.

Pro-FAMILY, Pro-CREATION and Pro-Singapore Survey (September 2012)

Following Prime Minister Lee’s suggestion at the Rally that the current four-month maternity leave was just right and that fathers could co-share the existing maternity leave with their wives, NTUC saw the need to reinforce its position on the earlier recommendations put forth to the National Population and Talent Division (NPTD) in August.  As such, U Family conducted more focus group discussions and regular engagement sessions to solicit further feedback from working parents, as well as carried out another survey with over 1,000 respondents, comprising singles and married working people, of which nearly half were married females aged between 30 and 39 years old, in September.

The survey revealed that nearly 60 per cent of the respondents felt strongly that the current four months maternity leave and employer support was not enough and wanted paternity leave and flexi-work arrangements (FWA) instead. Half of them wanted at least one additional month of paid maternity leave. On the possibility of co-sharing maternity leave between the mother and father, i.e. allowing the father to take part of the maternity leave as paternity leave, almost 80 per cent said they would agree, on condition that the current maternity leave was extended by two more months.

The survey findings further showed that half of respondents felt their companies did not encourage work-life balance, while a significant 76 per cent saw challenges in requesting for FWA.  In fact, 71 per cent of them opined that with right to FWA, they could have more children.  About 92 per cent of them preferred to have children than to have a successful career with no children.

NTUC’s POSITION on Pro-FAMILY, Pro-CREATION and Pro-Singapore

The latest survey findings reinforce the recommendations submitted by NTUC to the NPTD:

Paternity Leave

To enable fathers to play an active role in parenting especially during the initial period after the baby is born, NTUC hopes the Government could consider granting two weeks of paid paternity leave, over and above the current 16 weeks of maternity leave, that may be used flexibly and shared with the mother in the baby’s first year.

Family-First Culture – Leave On Time

While many Singaporean working parents had set aside this Children’s Day weekend to take their children out on this fun-filled U Picnic, NTUC hopes to see more working parents and singles spending quality time with their family, not just on weekends, but weekdays as well. NTUC wants to set a new social norm. For a start, it calls on employers in unionised companies to let staff off on time every day to spend time with their families. NTUC believes that all levels in the organisation, from co-workers to line managers to middle management, need to embrace the culture of placing Family First. In some organisations, Fridays have been designated as “Blue Sky” day where employees are let off work on time or earlier.

Legislated Right to Flexible Work Arrangements (FWA)

• NTUC believes this right can be extended to all parents, but priority should be given to parents with children with special needs and to parents with very young children. This would encourage companies to rethink flexibility (including optional, non-permanent arrangements such as “block” time-off, telecommuting, flexi-working time, flexi-working place, etc.) and re-design jobs that enable working persons to have a family while continuing with their career aspirations.
• More resources could also be put into advocating for FWA and educating employers and line managers. For a start, to facilitate transition to the new legislation, the right to FWA could be put into a set of Tripartite Guidelines. In the initial stages, the focus could be on employers with larger workforce sizes and their employees. The Government may also wish to provide grants/incentives for companies to move into FWAs.

Financial Grants for Employees

NTUC also proposes that more support in child-bearing and child-rearing be given to families. While Singaporeans should not see children as “costs” or burden, it remains a fact that raising a family does require substantial resources, financially or otherwise. The following measures are proposed to support family-building:

• The Government currently matches parents’ contribution to the Child Development Account (CDA) dollar for dollar at a cap of between $6,000 and $18,000. NTUC proposed that the Government contribute a sum of $3,000 into the CDA as start-up funding.
• To maximise opportunity for Singaporean children, the Government could review the contributions to and the usage of the CDA together with the Edusave account to ensure contributions from birth up to the time the child receives tertiary education. The usage of the Edusave account should be expanded for tertiary education.

“We are tremendously encouraged by the strong turnout at our first mass picnic gathering, U Picnic which saw more than 5,000 participants coming together to celebrate family togetherness and bond through great food and fun. We hope to see more working persons embrace a Family First Culture by spending more quality time with their loved ones, and more employers changing their mindset by putting in place more pro-family measures. This must be the new norm that we set for our society,” said NTUC Assistant Secretary-General Ms Cham Hui Fong, who also champions women and family issues in the Labour Movement.  

Event Highlights

Ms Cham, alongside NTUC FairPrice Chief Executive Officer Mr Seah Kian Peng and NTUC Deputy Secretary-General Mr Heng Chee How, joined in the U Picnic revelry where children and their parents got into a record-breaking movement in the “Mass Freeze Frame” challenge, which made it to the Singapore Book of Records. There were also a wide array of fringe activities that kept the children entertained, such as the Best Dressed Family Contest, Best Family Moments Photograph Contest, Most Creative Picnic Setup Contest and U Picnic Family Challenge. Local singing duo Jack and Rai performed on stage, while families were treated to local delights like rojak and roti prata; as well as international cuisine, from Spanish pastries to Korean snacks.