The first day of the NTUC National Delegates’ Conference (NDC) on 27 October 2015 held at Downtown East saw NTUC Secretary-General (SG) Chan Chun Sing release a report on how the Labour Movement has fared over the course of four years since it set out to achieve three key outcomes.
The outcomes set at the last NDC in 2011 included creating Better Jobs for All, being a Labour Movement for All and Tripartism for All.
Better Jobs for All
Stating that the Labour Movement has “yielded good results”, SG Chan touched on the low unemployment rates, increased employment rates for women and mature workers, and the increasing wages of low-wage workers.
He also stated that many sectors have seen improvements with the Progressive Wage Model (PWM).
Today, the PWM has benefited more than 100,000 workers in 300 unionised companies from the 12 clusters of the Labour Movement.
For mature workers, the Labour Movement successfully pushed for re-employment of mature workers, resulting in changes to the Retirement and Re-employment Act.
With the amendment of the Employment and Industrial Relations Act, the Labour Movement has successfully lobbied to increase protection for Professionals, Managers and Executives (PMEs).
Other achievements included the Labour Movement’s active role in introducing the Fair Consideration Framework and the National Jobs Bank to ensure a more level playing field for PMEs.
Labour Movement for All
With regard to union membership, SG Chan said that the numbers have been increasing steadily from 680,000 in 2011 to 888,000 today. The resident unionisation rate also increased from 24.9 percent in 2011 to 28 per cent in 2014. More than 1,600 companies are now unionised.
SG Chan was also encouraged to see that the Labour Movement communities such as nEbO, U Family, Young NTUC and U Live continue to grow “from strength to strength”.
“The communities also serve as an avenue for activists to contribute their time to the Labour Movement, and as a platform for them to provide feedback while helping to shape national policies,” he said.
Touching on the U Associate Programme, SG Chan mentioned that through working closely with associations, the Labour Movement has been able to develop career and skills progression plans for PMEs. To date, 22 associations have embarked on the programme as U Associate partners.
Tripartism for All
The Labour Movement has put in place the 3-Flow (Flow In, Flow Up and Flow On) framework to strengthen and grow its leadership. According to SG Chan, the Labour Movement today has 6,000 leaders in the union leadership pool, and with help of the framework, the trend of decreasing union leadership numbers has been reversed.
“These achievements are the result of the efforts of our unions and partners, who all have a common commitment to place interests of workers and members first,” stated SG Chan in his report.
He also honoured Manpower Minister Lim Swee Say, who helmed the Labour Movement as Secretary-General from 2007 up until early 2015.
SG Chan said: “On behalf of the Labour Movement, my heartfelt appreciation goes to Brother Lim for his dedication in helping our workers live better lives during his tenure as NTUC Secretary-General. We strive to build on this good work as we take the Labour Movement to the next level, for the benefit of our workers.”
Source: NTUC This Week
