Photo: NTUC's first Triennial Delegates' Conference in 1973 (Credit: Perjuangan NTUC).
Just as NTUC has moved on with the times, the important NTUC National Delegates’ Conference (NDC) has also evolved over the years. From being a hectic Annual Delegates’ Conference (ADC) after NTUC’s formal registration in 1964, it became a Triennial Delegates’ Conference (TDC) before the current quadrennial NDC, following amendments to the NTUC Constitution.
In addition, an Ordinary Delegates’ Conference (ODC) takes place in between each TDC and NDC, and there are also the Pre-TDCs, Pre-ODCs and Pre-NDCs as well. The NDC takes care of business such as the adoption of resolutions, workshops to address workers’ issues, answering delegates’ concerns, reviewing the past four years and setting targets for the next four years.
More importantly, a new Central Committee and leaders are elected to take the Labour Movement forward into the next four years. That has not changed.
What has also not changed is that the Conference, whether ADC, TDC or NDC, has traditionally been opened by no less than a Cabinet Minister, often the Prime Minister himself, from the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP).
It is a statement of the strong symbiosis that exists between the Government and NTUC, and this has been so ever since the late founding Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew spoke at the opening of NTUC’s first ADC in 1964. That set the stage for Cabinet Ministers, political office holders and Members of Parliament to feature regularly in NTUC conferences, seminars, workshops and dialogues.
In fact, even before NTUC’s formal registration in 1964, then Deputy Prime Minister Toh Chin Chye had spoken at the opening of NTUC’s Delegates’ Conference held from 14-17 September 1962 after NTUC’s first pro-tem Committee was formed on 6 September 1961.
This year will be no different as Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong will deliver the keynote address on 15 October 2019 for this year’s National Delegates’ Conference that will last for two days.
