Moving away from sharing targets in figures and numbers for the year ahead, NTUC Secretary-General (SG) Lim Swee Say charted out the Labour Movement’s direction towards the years leading to 2020 at its Workplan Seminar held today.
He highlighted that there was a need for Singapore to slow down the growth rate in the workforce to less than 2 per cent and at the same time, sustain GDP growth at 3 to 4 per cent.
The way forward is to transform the future so that there would still be jobs, opportunities and wage increases for our workers.
For this to happen, it would be important to value every worker, every job and every investment, and also stronger tripartite ties.
He added that while Singapore had secured good tripartism bonds at the national level, it would be important to also strengthen these ties at the sectoral level.
There are many challenges now pulling Singapore’s economy in different directions, and for a transition to take effect, it would be essential to sharpen the focus and strengthen alignment, making incremental improvements and striving for breakthroughs in some areas.
Responses on the Labour Movement’s direction into the future
“It will be great if we can achieve the sectoral level tripartism and this will really strengthen the tripartite movement. We are supportive of the Labour Movement’s longer term plans. The recent events show us the need to work closer together and continually strengthen tripartism. We cannot take even good relationships for granted.” Singapore National Employers Federation (SNEF) President Stephen Lee
“The workplan was towards the future, very constructive and has set the stage for the tripartite partners to work much closer in the years to come. This will help the economy, workforce and Singapore to move forward. Mr Lim also particularly reminded us that the rest of the world is not doing well and Singapore is an exception. We should continue to, strengthen tripartism, not just at the national level, but down to the sectoral and company levels.” Ministry of Manpower, Labour Relations and Workplaces Division, Senior Director and Advisor Ong Yen Her
“We understand the tight labour market and that inflation is rising. SG’s vision for 2020 has given us union leaders good directions to work with our partners in many areas such as improving wages, enhancing productivity and taking care of foreign manpower. As we move along to reduce dependency on foreign labour, we should also be tackling issues that are related to our local workers in key areas like raising their productivity, up-skilling and advancing their careers. We will extend more efforts towards the Progressive Wage Model to achieve this.” National Transport Workers’ Union (NTWU) President Mohd Rasi Tai
