Guest Of Honour, Deputy Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong
Secretary General of NTUC, Mr Lim Boon Heng
NTUC Central Committee Members
Management
Distinguished Guests
Comrades and Friends
A very good morning and warm welcome to you in joining us today as we celebrate National Day 2004 by holding the National Day Observance Ceremony together.
On behalf of the Finance and services unions, I would like to express my appreciation to DPM Lee for gracing this ceremony.
This is the first time that the 5 unions in NTUC’s finance cluster, an informal grouping formed in February 1999, together with 6 services unions have come together in this manner to celebrate our nation’s birthday. The 11 unions that have jointly organize today’s ceremony are:
DBS Staff Union (DBSSU), ExxonMobil Singapore Employees’ Union (EMSEU), Singapore Airport Terminal Services Workers’ Union (SATSWU), Singapore Bank Employees’ Union (SBEU), Singapore Bank Officers’ Association (SBOA), Singapore Insurance Employees’ Union (SIEU), Singapore Manual and Mercantile Workers’ Union (SMMWU), Singapore Press Holdings Employees’ Union (SPHEU),Singapore Union of Broadcasting Employees (SUBE),Union of Telecoms Employees of Singapore (UTES) and United Workers of Petroleum Industry (UWPI).
The theme for this year’s National Day Celebrations is “A Progressive Society” and I believe that Singapore can achieve to be a society of progression. 2004 definitely has been a much better year compared to 2003 and we certainly have good reasons to cheer. Singapore’s gross domestic product figures registered strong economic growth in the first two quarters of the year against the low base last year. This was indicative of the economy’s recovery from the severe impact of SARS a year ago as well as the continuing pickup in global economic activity.
The recovery was made possible by the joint efforts of all the 3 partners in the tripartite relationship represented here today. The set up of tripartite task force recommending guidelines for the well being of Singaporeans and businesses have become an important platform to reach out to the public and tripartism will continue to be a key factor that helps our economy succeeds.
We also see the trend of falling grievances from our workers as our economy recovers. Though most of us have become more optimistic about the future and many of our workers are slowing feeling the recovery with better wage increases and bonuses this year, we should be sensitive and be aware that not all industries have recovered in the same good pace. We also have workers where they continue to experience wage freezes in industries that have not caught on the pace of recovery.
There is also another group of workers that I am mindful of and feel burdened for. They are the workers who were affected by the poor economy in past years and continued to be structurally unemployed for prolonged periods. They continue to face difficulties in getting jobs. This could be due to the fact that at the early stage of recovery, employers with a choice of job seekers would generally prefer to take on those with more recent employment experience and thus, they find it even harder to get out of the vicious cycle of unemployment. The less educated and mature will continue to be more vulnerable to long term unemployment as they will face greater difficulties adjusting to the challenges in the new economy. We must continue to step up our efforts to help these groups of people.
Therefore, representatives from the union and management, I urge you to continue to work together with the government to help our needy workers and to build a better future for our fellow Singaporeans.
Thank you.
