During the Budget debate, my fellow labour MPs have touched on the needs of various groups of workers and myself touched on the challenges confronting one segment, the Professionals, Managers and Executives (PMEs for short). Our collective message was to value every worker and my message was to value every PME. I submit that we need to look beyond what the Budget provides and into existing laws, guidelines, policies and programmes to ensure we stay relevant and to cater to this growing population of PMEs in Singapore to ensure they are future-ready and future-proof.
From a policy perspective, I am glad that Ministry of Manpower has taken my suggestion and is seriously looking into labour market testing, tightening the Employment Pass and ‘S’ pass framework. All these are lauded steps towards advancing the interests of our local PMEs. I hope to hear from the Minister how long he targets this analysis of labour market testing to complete.
Young PMEs
For young PMEs, they are often caught between choosing the job of their passion or meeting their financial needs and paying off their study loans. Regardless of the choice they make, they are often at the mercy of the terms and conditions of their prospective employers. If they choose their passion, there could be insufficient good employment opportunities. Even in jobs they seek for a living, they may sometimes be coerced to accept contract work and exploited on inferior terms compared to their peers. My fellow Labour MP Mr Alex Yam has also shared on this issue in this House. There is also a lack of mentoring programmes that will guide young PMEs to make wise career choices suiting their strengths and potential. WDA’s Caliberlink has been doing some of this work but I foresee a serious need to further enhance the capabilities from a systemic level to map and mentor young PMEs towards fulfilling their life and career aspirations.
Female PMEs
For female PMEs, there is some work-life enhancement through the WOW fund to encourage employers and ease our female PMEs to manage their careers and take care of their families. However, we can do more in this. I have mentioned in my speeches that if women are not able to handle both important aspects well to their expectations, they would always be compelled to give up their careers for the sake of their families. Yet, we also do not do anything for stay-at-home mums to recognize their contributions towards their families and our society. I would like to repeat my call again for stay-at-home mums to be given top-ups in their Medisave and Special Accounts.
As for flexible working arrangements, I would like to join labour NMP Ms Mary Liew and several others in this House to repeat my call again for it to be legislated so that employees have the right to request for such arrangements. In examining the contributions of female PMEs, they should not be judged by face time in the office but measured in actual work outcomes. For our female PMEs, the decision to have a family is a difficult one. The measures that we have introduced in the Marriage & Parenthood package have been useful to a certain extent. To augment, we need to look at re-designing the way we work, childcare and living arrangements such that it will not be a mad rush from one point to the other and that employers have a stake in their employees’ families’ well-being.
Mature PMEs
Mature PMEs aged 40 and above are often the most vulnerable segment in any downturn or company restructuring. If they lose their jobs, they are often unable to start afresh with the same salary should they go into a new industry or join another new company. They are also often saddled with housing mortgages, financial commitments, supporting their children’s education and looking after their parents and in-laws. We have seen an increase in the relative percentage and number of PMEs being retrenched the past few years and they mostly fall into the mature category. What can Ministry of Manpower do better to look after the interests and welfare of these mature PMEs to be affected in such restructuring exercises as they have the most to lose? We should take action to provide mature PMEs greater confidence in their future by providing training and postgraduate support to them should they be keen to further their knowledge and professionalism. I am concerned as we are often caught with an outcomes based approach. I therefore urge the MOM to seriously look at second skilling all PMEs, especially those matured PMEs so that they can weather any financial storm. The second skill can be in any area of the PMEs’ passion and interest. For example, a banker may have strong events management or counselling abilities. In the event of a downturn and layoff, he or she can then take up work outside of the banking environment and work in an events company or even join the social service sector to put his or her counselling skills to good use and also make a living. Second skilling coupled with a full-fledge career placement service would be a great boon for PMEs especially mature PMEs. Most importantly,employers must change their mindsets about the hiring of mature PMEs and I hope the civil service will also lead the way in this.
Freelance PMEs
The number of freelance PMEs or professional freelancers are on the rise and was last recorded at about 170,000, they also represent another major vulnerable group of PMEs as they do not have the traditional support of employers in benefits such as medical coverage, work injury insurance, union representation etc. As independent contractors, they are subject to the terms imposed on them by the buyers of their services. It is often a “Big Fish v Small Fish” scenario as the freelance professional is often battling it out alone and may not have the deepest of pockets. Often, their only economically viable recourse is through the Small Claims Tribunal but there are its limitations and constraints.
I have outreached and engaged many freelance professionals and they share that seeking timely payment for the service they have rendered is often a challenge. Unlike unionised employees, they are not able to seek the help of a union to represent them in these cases. I would therefore like to call upon the Ministry of Manpower to look into their plight and to see how the interests, welfare and work conditions of freelance professionals can be better looked after. This can be in the form of specialised dispute resolution mechanisms to relevant guidelines to set minimum standards for operators or businesses to comply with in the engaging freelancers. We could possibly pilot with certain industries with larger number of freelancers such as the creative industry which has more than 30,000 in the profession.
Other than late or non-payments, contract terms severely unfavourable to them such as the surrender of complete intellectual property rights to their concept, idea, photo, design, script or score is often another challenge that freelancers have to bear. By the same token, they have shared about the lack of insurance coverage in event of an injury sustained in the course of work. They could be photographers or film crew operating in the outdoors and in treacherous natural environments to actors and actresses on stage having to execute difficult manoeuvres or suspended off stage. They may sustain injuries, sometimes severe and often not covered by any form of work injury insurance unlike employees who are covered by the Work Injury Compensation Act. I would like to urge that service buyers be made to provide work injury insurance for these freelance professionals as part of their contracts. Until such time this is done, I urge buyers of services and those who contract freelancers to do work cover them with work injury insurance so that they are protected when carrying out work as part of the contract.
Protection of PMEs via the Employment Act
Singapore’s workforce demographic profile and median wages have changed and risen over the years. In my maiden speech in this house in 2011, I urged the government to look into a review of our labour legislation, in particular the Employment Act, to better protect this growing number of PMEs. For a start, I asked specifically to look at increasing the scope of coverage of our Employment Act to cover this growing populace of PMEs. I repeated that call again during Budget and COS last year. I am glad and thankful to Minister of Manpower for acting on that request and announcing that his Ministry will review the Employment Act during his Ministry’s Workplan Seminar on 17 April last year.
NTUC has since consulted our unions and leaders and then shared our wish list for the various amendments it sought. Our leaders agreed that more protection for PMEs should be availed through the Employment Act. PMEs like rank and file workers are these days subject to termination and dismissal and have little recourse save for civil suits which costs may far outweigh the benefits. In the same vein, there is also a need to revise the laws to protect vulnerable groups of workers and also review provisions in the Act to stay current and relevant with a changing employment landscape and rising wages. As such, we pushed for the need to raise the non-workmen salary levels, currently set at $2000 within the Act to keep pace with rising salaries of the workforce. For low wage workers, we advocated for the mandatory provision of payslips and employment contracts. In the wish list, we also asked for greater protection of outsourced workers and those on short term contracts and recognition of medical certificates from Traditional Chinese Medicine Physicians. In view of shorter employment periods and terms these days, we advocated for the reduction of the 3-year time bar to qualify for payment of retrenchment benefits.
Finally, I also asked for the upward revision of the maximum amount of claims under the priority of debts provision in Section 328 of the Companies Act as that the amount has remain unchanged despite rising median salaries since 20 years ago.
Enlarging the Scope of Union Representation of PMEs
Our current labour laws allow the formation of 2 types of unions. Namely the executive union and the rank and file union. Executive unions cover and can represent PMEs. Besides collective representation of rank and file workers, rank and file unions currently can individually represent junior executives for limited areas like retrenchment, breach of contract, victimisation and unfair dismissal.
In fact, last year, UWEEI, a rank and file union actually represented 35 PMEs individually when they took up their PME members' case to the Industrial Arbitration Court in relation to payment of their retrenchment benefits.
It is therefore important for NTUC and our Unions to be able to stretch the scope of representation as well as in the Collective Agreement to allow even more PMEs in their workplaces to be covered. This will be both in terms of collective representation as well as areas of limited representation. At the same time, we should also see how we can augment the current tripartite mediation process including the areas of dispute which has been catered for PMEs. The Industrial Relations Act should be reviewed to facilitate and augment our current efforts to enable unions to individually and collectively represent even more PMEs. I urge employers including Ministry of Manpower to help facilitate this as NTUC presses full steam ahead on our outreach and advocacy for PMEs.
Closing
It is my humble wish to see Ministry of Manpower in rolling out its reviews, policies and programmes to always bear in mind that NTUC and the labour Movement wants our tripartite partners to also Value Every Worker and at the same time create Fair Opportunities for PMEs, Fair Treatment of PMEs and also Fair Wages or them. This will then help set the stage for Better Jobs, Better Pay and Better Life for them and all towards a Better Singapore.
