Brother David Cockroft, General Secretary of ITF,
Brother Brian Orrell, Chairman of Fair Practices Committee,
Colleagues in Singapore affiliates in the ITF,
Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen,
First, allow me to extend a very warm welcome to you.
GLOBALISATION
Globalisation is reshaping the world economy. Capital, goods and services now flow much more freely than before between economies and across continents. Companies can source for supplies and labour from lower cost countries that were previously hard to access. These developments have caused huge shifts in how and where business is done. Outsourcing and offshoring have become issues of concern among politicians and workers. Trade unions are in the forefront of this debate. For you in the seafaring professions, these are not new issues, as your sector has been one of the first to see the global shifts in employment.
Those who advocate that globalisation is good do have a point. For developing countries globalisation offers hope. The in-flow of investments and free trade creates jobs. More jobs mean better income for the workers, and a higher standard of living. This in turn will lead to higher consumption and demand for imported goods and services from the developed economies. It will provide more jobs for them. Meanwhile, the cheaper products and services offered by the lower cost countries will help to keep the cost of living down in the developed world. While there is a fear that the less developed countries will take away jobs from the developed ones, the reality is less disastrous than it would seem.
Opponents of globalisation claim that the workers in lower cost countries, hungry for jobs and opportunities, will be exploited and treated unfairly. There will be a race to the bottom in pricing and wages, forcing everyone to get less pay for more done. They too have a point, if companies do not act responsibly in the communities they do business in. Globalisation is unsustainable if companies pursue profits without regard to the other dimensions of business. They must observe corporate social responsibility, business ethics and labour standards for globalisation to bring benefits to businesses and communities all over the world.
Nevertheless, adjustments need to be made in the economies affected by globalisation. Some less valuable jobs will shift to lower cost countries. The new jobs created will need workers with greater knowledge and higher skills. How should unions respond?
UNIONS’ RESPONSE
In the developed economies, one strategy must be the continuing training and retraining of workers, to raise their skills level so that they can be more productive. Employers will then find that it is worthwhile to pay a premium price for labour.
In the case of Singapore, we have grown from being a developing country to a developed economy over the last 38 years. In the past, we competed on the basis of low cost and high quality. Today, many countries can offer the same to investors. We have to go up the technology ladder to remain competitive.
Seafarers and dockworkers had much earlier faced the same pressures as that faced by workers in other industries. Their unions have taken up the challenge by helping the members upgrade their knowledge and skills so that they will remain employable.
The Singapore Maritime Officers’ Union, SMOU and the Singapore Organisation of Seamen, SOS for example, have set aside a significant sum of money to train seamen so as to improve their job prospects at sea. They had also found that they could not find jobs on ships that pay what Singaporeans need. Therefore they had to train seamen for jobs ashore as well. SMOU has also tied up with the Singapore Maritime Academy of the Singapore Polytechnic to conduct various diploma and advanced diploma courses to enable trainees who have acquired the necessary sea service on merchant ships to sit for the relevant deck officer and marine engineer officer certificate of competency examinations. To encourage skill certification and life-long learning, SMOU also offers study grants to its members.
The two enterprise unions of PSA Corporation, namely, Singapore Port Workers’ Union, SPWU and Port Officers’ Union, POU, have supported greater flexibility in staff deployment and work methods/processes in PSA Corporation to meet the peaks and troughs of port operations. While wages will fluctuate, there will be greater job security, with retrenchment relegated to a measure of last resort. Both unions have also supported productivity improvements at the port, which have translated into higher profits for the company and higher income for the officers and workers.
Beside assisting and encouraging local seamen to retrain and upgrade themselves for a competitive employment market, our unions went one step further.
SOS set up the Seacare co-operative in May 1994 with the mission "to help and benefit Singapore seamen and their families through more work opportunities and appropriate investment projects". The setting up of Seacare was a killing-two-birds-with-one-stone-effort, that is, to help its members and itself. It is a source of income for the union, and at the same time an effective agency to help seafarers find jobs, be it at sea or on shore.
Similarly, SMOU has also set up the Wavelink co-operative in June 2000 with one of the aims being to seek career opportunities for members in the maritime and/or other industries.
MARITIME SECURITY
Let me now move on to maritime security. In recent years, maritime piracy has witnessed a sharp increase. The threat of terrorists striking the shipping industry cannot be more real. The Malacca Straits, which separates peninsular Malaysia from the Indonesian island of Sumatra, carries half the world's oil shipments and a quarter of its trade. It is particularly vulnerable to pirates and terrorist attacks. If a ship is sunk in the right spot, where the sea lane is only 23 metres deep, it would cripple world trade for quite a long while. The safety of the Malacca Straits is of concern not just to the littoral states, but to the entire global trading community.
The International Maritime Organisation (IMO) has chosen the theme “IMO 2004: Focus on Maritime Security” for World Maritime Day on 30 Sept 2004. It is likely to focus on the International Ship and Port Facility Security (ISPS) Code and the Revision of the Suppression of Unlawful Acts (SUA) Convention.
In conjunction with the World Maritime Day, I understand that the ITF Seafarers’ Section Committee, in its Seafarers’ Section Day of Action, will be promoting the ratification of ILO Convention No. 185 on Seafarers’ Identity Documents; and shore leave for seafarers and transit to and from ships. I support this effort.
SINGAPORE’S EFFORTS
The ISPS code has come into effect since 1 July 2004. I am pleased to note that Singapore has fully complied with the code introduced by IMO in 2002 to help enhance maritime security through mandatory security plans.
Singapore will spare no effort in our defence against terrorism. We will continue to implement the necessary measures that will give our port and ships more protection against terrorism and work together with Malaysia and Indonesia to step up security at this strategic waterway. We will also work with other nations in a global effort to tackle maritime terrorism and enhance security in the Straits.
Being an active member of the ILO, Singapore fully supports the ILO's work in promoting internationally recognised labour standards. The government is committed to ratify more conventions. It has always exercised great care to ensure that it can comply fully with what it plans to ratify. The labour movement will continue to do its part to urge and assist the government to ratify more conventions.
CONCLUSION
Let us continue to work together to harness the benefits of globalisation to bring a better standard of living to workers all over the world.
On this note, I wish you a fruitful meeting and a pleasant stay in Singapore. Thank you.
