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The first case is the bipartite effort by the Singapore Newspaper Distributors Association (SNDA) and the Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) which involves the newspapers delivery workers.
SPH prints more than one million copies of newspapers daily. About 600,000 of these copies are delivered to 400,000 households and offices. To do this, the industry requires 5,000 delivery workers. This is a very labour-intensive industry. To many Singaporeans, this is a tough job. Imagine waking up in the wee hours of the morning, at 3.00 am, and having to walk up blocks and blocks of housing flats to deliver newspapers to the doorsteps.
Over the years, the industry has been facing a huge challenge in recruiting workers. Last year, we formed a Tripartite Workgroup with key representatives from NTUC, MOM, SPH, the newsvendors associations and worked hard to look at ways and means for solutions. Together, we achieved some breakthroughs. SPH ploughed in $1.5 million, and started a branding exercise to raise the image of delivery workers, with uniforms, etc. They organized job fairs, with e2i, town councils and the CDCs. The newsvendors raised salaries and improved the benefits given to these workers. Since the exercise started, 180 Singaporeans were recruited.
With the introduction of the IGP last year, the Tripartite Workgroup is now tapping on this programme to look at ways to raise the productivity of the delivery workers. These workers will be trained to be multi-skilled and to improve their service standards so that they are able to retain the current subscribers and recruit new subscribers. Workers will also be able to deliver newspapers to more households and offices. Ultimately, the productivity gains will be shared with the workers.
Sir, the second case is the tripartite effort by the ITE, taxi companies and the National Taxi Association (NTA).
NTA is committed to the IGP which aim at helping companies enhance their productivity and workers transform their job, skills and wages. Together with the Employment and Employability Institute (e2i), NTA has initiated discussions with Taxi companies on tapping the IGP fund to enhance taxi companies’ productivity and improve drivers’ income. Taxi companies response to IGP has been positive. Specific initiatives and projects have been identified and discussed such as enhancing the call system booking, service excellence training of drivers, enhancing automotive service and work processes to drivers.
Among these initiatives, Automotive services and its work process seems to be a primary concern to most Taxi companies, in particular the shortage of qualified and good motor mechanics in their workshops. As a result, in some workshops, drivers have had to wait for long period of times for their vehicle to be serviced. This “down time” of Taxi vehicle inadvertently affects drivers’ earnings, the taxi services to the commuters and eventually translated to higher operating costs for taxi companies as they too need to compensate drivers for their down time.
Hence, a work group with representatives from taxi Companies, e2i and ITE will soon be formed to focus on how to address the shortage of mechanics and enhance the workflow and work processes in the workshops. For a start, the work group would focus on a few areas such as:
a. Standardising training across the industry to promote minimum skills standards
b. Determine if companies can pay better for entry level mechanics
c. Raise productivity and improve work processes in the workshops
It is laudable for the taxi industry and companies to come together and take the initiative to form this workgroup and address their own specific industry challenge. While IGP funding is usually company based support, we do urge and hope that MOM could also consider expanding and allowing funding support to be applicable also to specific industry identified initiatives or projects. If a project or initiative is implemented at industry level, the number of workers to benefit from it would surely be of greater numbers than just company specific. At the same time, not all companies especially the SME, had the financial and manpower resources to work on initiatives and projects. As such, many would not be able to tap onto the IGP.
The above two cases show that NTUC, with its tripartite partners, can help low wage and low skill workers through the IGP to have better skill, better pay and better lives.
Mininum Wage
I shall join in the debate on minimum wage from the perspective of the self-employed.
To them, they have to prove their job worth, and their relevance to the market. This is what they call “ 自食其力”. Thus, the worth of the job is set by your own self, set by the market, not by the Government. However, the IGP can help improve their skills, their relevance and improve the work process and the company’s productivity. In the end, they share the gain. Thus, I would like to urge the government to do more for many of the self-employed who are also low income workers.
Indeed, the same argument of job worth applies to all workers too.
