Good Evening and welcome to May Day Dinner 2014.
Tonight, we kick off the May Day Celebrations for 2014. This year, we are happy to celebrate May Day with workers benefiting from higher employment, low unemployment, and real wage growth for all workers, including those in the lower income groups.
The theme for this year’s May Day is “Better Jobs, Better Workers”. To sustain real wage increase for all workers, our economic growth must be driven by productivity improvements. Hence, we must continue to help companies create better jobs that are more productive, and at the same time, easier, safer and smarter to benefit our workers.
As workers, we must play our part too. We must continue to take advantage of every opportunity to upskill ourselves. By becoming better workers, we ensure that we can secure and retain better jobs that are more productive.
This will not be easy. We need all companies to innovate their work processes, so as to make best use of every resource. We need to make the Progressive Wage Model as pervasive as possible so that we can benefit not just rank and file workers, but also PMEs in all sectors. We also need Government agencies in every sector to lead in guiding these efforts. In short, we need strong and pervasive tripartism in every sector to drive this qualitative shift. I am glad that this tripartite mechanism is taking root in some sectors such as cleaning, security and healthcare. Nevertheless, we need to speed up our efforts. Global competition will not wait for us and allow us the luxury of time to transform ourselves.
It is therefore appropriate tonight that we take the opportunity to honour not only outstanding unionists, but also supportive and enlightened management partners and tripartite leaders. We could not have achieved such positive outcomes for workers and union members without their strong support.
I am especially proud that we are conferring the Medal of Honour for the first time in 10 years, to not one, but two outstanding individuals who have rendered distinguished services to the Labour Movement. They are Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Home Affairs, Brother Teo Chee Hean, and Minister for Health Brother Gan Kim Yong. Thank you, for your strong support for the Labour Movement, and standing by our workers through good times and bad.
Tonight, we are honoured to have Acting Manpower Minister, Brother Tan Chuan-Jin as our Guest of Honour. Since taking on the portfolio as Acting Manpower Minister, Brother Tan has actively engaged NTUC and the Labour Movement on major issues such as raising of CPF contribution rates for mature workers, and introducing the Fair Consideration Framework for Singaporean PMEs to have fairer access to better job opportunities, so that we can help PME job seekers to prepare themselves better for these jobs.
With the changing workforce profile, Brother Tan also strengthened the Employment Act to cover and protect more workers. Currently, Brother Tan is also leading the Ministry of Manpower in the review of the Industrial Relations Act to ensure it remains relevant and continues to serve the long-term interests of workers, unions and businesses in Singapore. Thank you Brother Tan for your strong support for the labour movement and for all our workers!
It is now my pleasure to invite our Guest of Honour, Acting Manpower Minister, Brother Tan Chuan-Jin to deliver his keynote address.
Brother Tan, please.
