This morning, Prime Minister (PM) Lee Hsien Loong, NTUC President Mary Liew, NTUC Secretary-General (SG) Ng Chee Meng and National Transport Workers’ Union (NTWU) union leaders visited public transport workers, including bus captains and administrative staff, at the Woodlands Integrated Transport Hub (WITH) bus interchange.
This Lunar New Year (LNY) Eve visit was organised to thank them for providing essential public transport services during the festive period. Joining the visit was Manpower and Defence Senior Minister of State Zaqy Mohamad, Transport and Finance Senior Minister of State Chee Hong Tat, Land Transport Authority (LTA) Chief Executive Lang Ng and SMRT Corporation management representatives.
Today’s LNY Eve visit is part of the annual tradition where NTUC and Labour Movement leaders spread festive cheer to workers who continue to provide essential service during the LNY period. LNY gift bags, which included red packets, mandarin oranges, a carrier pouch, chips and disposable face masks were presented to the public transport workers at WITH in the spirit of the festive season.
Organised by NTUC and NTWU, this year’s visit was hosted by SMRT Corporation Ltd, a unionised company under NTWU.
Better Wage, Welfare and Work Prospects for Public Transport Workers
Public transport is an essential service for our economy and communities, hence it is vital to develop a strong Singaporean Core amongst our public transport workforce. NTUC recognises the need to improve career prospects by upskilling our public transport workers especially our bus captains. In 2012, NTUC worked with industry stakeholders and tripartite partners to introduce a progressive wage structure for the Transport & Logistics Services Cluster, covering bus captains amongst the worker groups. This was the first progressive wage model that was introduced for workers’ wages to be raised in tandem with skills, career and productivity. Since then, close to 10,000 public transport workers from the four Public Transport Operators (PTOs) in Singapore have benefitted where the average starting basic salary is now $2,150 as compared to $1,375 prior to 2012.
Looking ahead, as part of LTA’s plans for half of Singapore’s public bus fleet to be electric buses by 2030 to reduce land transport emissions, bus captains and technicians are being trained progressively to handle electric buses. In this regard, the Singapore Bus Academy has been working with the relevant stakeholders including bus suppliers, Institutes of Higher Learning, NTWU and bus operators to curate relevant training programmes on cleaner energy buses for the bus workforce.
Besides ensuring that our public transport workers are future-ready, it is also important to ensure that their welfare and safety are taken care of. As frontliners, our public transport workers come into direct contact with the public in their daily course of work. During the COVID-19 pandemic period, to ensure that our public transport system continued to run, NTWU worked closely with LTA and the PTOs to ensure the safety of public transport workers throughout their daily course of work including introducing measures such as enhanced cleaning of interchanges and buses, regular daily temperature taking and routine testing as well as dedicated rest areas for bus transport workers. When there was a surge in infections, leading to some bus captains putting in longer working hours or even work on their rest days, NTWU worked with PTOs to ensure that their physical and mental well-being was looked into.
NTUC Secretary-General Ng Chee Meng said, “Our public transport workers have worked tirelessly through the pandemic period and shown exemplary conduct in observing good hygiene practices to protect the public and keep Singapore moving, despite the uncertainties that COVID-19 brought about. Today’s visit expresses our appreciation for the essential transport services they provide, even during the LNY festive period. With our economy gradually recovering and the public transport landscape evolving with the adoption of technology and climate change, such as with the switch to electric buses, we will continue helping our workers keep their skills updated so that they are able to handle these changes and in turn, keep their career pathways viable and sustainable.”
