18 Aug 2010
1 The National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) is getting closer to its target of having a 100% participation rate of unionised companies in re-employment by mid-2011, ahead of the re-employment legislation in 2012. Of its four-tiered re-employment framework (see Annex A for more details), NTUC is also striving for stronger commitment from these companies to attain Levels 3 and 4 of re-employment readiness by end-2010. Currently, about 50% of companies have attained these higher levels.
2 From a quick review of 100 unionised companies across various sectors, most employers are aware of the re-employment law and have taken steps to prepare themselves. For example, more than 60% has performance and medical fitness as re-employment criteria. This is aligned to the Tripartite Guidelines on the Re-employment of Older Employees (Tripartite Guidelines). Almost two-thirds of the companies also give some form of assistance payment when they cannot re-hire their older workers.
3 At the same time, the review also surfaced two areas for strengthening. Firstly, 52% of the unionised companies had in place structured consultation processes for their staff approaching the retirement age of 62. The other half should do likewise. Secondly, of those offering re-employment contracts, 30% make their offers to employees at least 3 months before retirement age, as recommended by the Tripartite Guidelines. More work will be done to achieve the same for the rest of the unionised companies, so that the workers can be certain of the arrangement as early as possible.
4 Looking forward, NTUC will increase its momentum to help more unaware companies on board the re-employment ladder, so that as many companies in Singapore can be well-prepared when the re-employment law kicks in by 2012. One of the immediate steps that NTUC is taking is to conduct an employee survey to determine the effectiveness of the companies’ re-employment initiatives within the unionised sector from the workers’ perspective. For instance, the results will show if the older workers are given sufficient information and assistance before re-employment and if the change of job scope upon re-employment is well thought-out.
