LM 2011 Vision – 650,000 union members
1 As the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) blazes on with its 50th anniversary celebrations, its membership adds another embellishment to the commemorative year – NTUC reaches the Labour Movement 2011 (LM 2011) vision of 650,000 3-Gen members, six months before the end of 2011. It places NTUC in good stead to achieve the goal of one million 3-Gen members by 2015.
2 The LM 2011 vision was unveiled in August 2006. NTUC built its vision to be an all-inclusive labour movement, serving the needs of members at different life stages in areas of work, live and play. NTUC set its sights to gain 500,000 members by 2007, 650,000 members by 2011 and 1 million members by 2015.
3 In 2007, NTUC set the foundation to its membership goals, through its 3R Membership strategy – Recruitment, Retention and Relationship. It reached the 500,000 membership milestone in August 2007. Another major milestone was the launch of nEbO, a community aimed at making our workers of tomorrow work-ready, world-ready, life-ready. Today, it is a 45,000-strong youth movement.
4 In 2008, the collective recruitment efforts of unions, NTUC Social Enterprises and partners aided membership growth by 3.5 per cent to 528,000. That year also saw NTUC unveiling a refreshed look as the Labour Movement evolves and keeps ahead of changing times so that we could better serve working people of all collars, all ages and all nationalities at work, live and play.
5 NTUC implemented various schemes to help workers and their families through the difficult times during the financial downturn in 2009. For instance, NTUC U Care Fund pooled together $23.2 million, making this NTUC’s largest fund-raising effort thus far. Despite the crisis, membership grew by 2 per cent to 540,000.
6 In 2010, the sowing of the 3R strategy bore fruits as NTUC witnessed one of the strongest membership growths since 2007, with an addition of 20,000 members in the first six months. U Communities - nEbO, Young NTUC, U Family and U Live intensified initiatives to better serve the needs of U members in different stages of their lives. By the end of 2010, LM expanded to 615,000 3-Gen members as nEbO becomes the junior membership of the Labour Movement.
2011 and beyond - Enhancing outreach to new members, associations, and partners
7 In March 2011, NTUC launched a new initiative – the U Associate programme. It is designed to enable associations to join NTUC en-masse, allowing members to tap into training benefits such as UTAP, as well as Live and Play benefits. U Associate first partnered Nanyang Technological University Alumni Club (NTU-AC), bringing all 3,000 NTU-AC members into the Labour Movement fold. In August 2011, all the 1800 members of the Institute of Estate Agents joined under the U Associate Programme too.
8 Unions also launched Professional Chapters to better engage their professionals, managers and executives (PMEs) members. As a result, Education Services Union with two Professional Chapters – for Early Childhood Educators, and Adult Educators – has grown from 2,700 to 17,800 today.
9 As of August 2011, NTUC’s PMEs members have increased by nearly 10 per cent to 142,000 since August 2010.
10 NTUC’s Live & Play membership benefits have gone up significantly as we grew our merchant partners from 100 in 2007 to more than 250 in 2011. For example, the tie-up with Universal Studios Singapore alone has attracted 38,000 members to enjoy the privileges within a three-month period. By the end of 2011, members are expected to save a total of $25 million through LinkPoints. The recent launch of Plus! BigDeals.com.sg has enabled our internet-savvy members to buy products and services at great value through group coupons. Union members also enjoy the exclusive privilege of earning double LinkPoints.
11 Mr Vivek Kumar, Director, NTUC Membership said, “We have made significant strides since 2007 to reach out to All CAN, 3-Gen workers through our unions and U communities. In 2011 we achieved breakthroughs in reaching out to new members through the launch of U Associate program as well as Professional Chapters set up by our unions. With our strategy of a Lifelong community, enhanced Outreach, compelling Value, and Engagement & workplace representation, or L.O.V.E. in short, we are confident to serve 1 Million union members by 2015.”
