Comrades, Ladies and Gentlemen,
I am pleased to be here this morning for the launch of the NTUC Charity Draw 2004. I would like to wish you all a Happy New Year. To our Chinese comrades who have just celebrated the Lunar New Year, let me wish you, Gong Xi Fa Cai.
Fund Raising For 2003
In 2003, the NTUC Charity Draw was organized in aid of the NTUC ElderCare Co-operative. It proved to be a tough year for the organizing committee, which had been tasked to raise $800,000. With the economy and workers hit hard by retrenchments, wage cuts, SARS and terrorist concerns, ticket sales were initially tough. However, much to our delight, subsequent strong support from our affiliates and related organizations enabled us to raise over a million dollars, with more than $600,000 raised by the affiliated unions alone.
Fund Raising for 2004
For year 2004, NTUC aims to raise $2 million for the NTUC Childcare Financial Assistance Fund and the ElderCare Trust. The NTUC Childcare Financial Assistance Fund was set up to help needy families whose children are from the NTUC Childcare Centres. The NTUC Childcare Financial Assistance Fund is used for 3 purposes. One is to subsidize the Literacy Time relief package, which absorbs the cost of books. Second, to provide a rebate of $100 per month for three months for retrenched parents and thirdly to absorb the 1% GST increase in January 2004 for low income families.
The ElderCare Trust will be used to support NTUC ElderCare. ElderCare was set up to operate day care centers for the elderly, with the long-term vision of providing a wide range of affordable care and related services to the elderly. As a non-profit centre, the fees, activities and programmes are heavily subsidized by the co-operative. Hence, continued donations are needed to help defray the cost. In addition, a committee has been formed to look into setting up a nursing home to provide affordable and quality care services for the elderly.
To date, I am very heartened to learn that more than $700,000 worth of prizes was generously sponsored by our affiliated unions, co-operatives and related organizations. With such strong support shown so early in the year, I am confident that our fund-raising target will be reached.
Expectations For 2004
Things are looking up in 2004. During the 3rd quarter of 2003, we had already seen the start of recovery in companies and the economy. The outlook of the global economy has similarly brightened up. Overall, there is a good level of optimism globally and we expect business conditions to improve over the next few months. The Ministry of Trade and Industry has given a preliminary forecast for economic growth in 2004 to be 3-5%, barring any unforeseen circumstances. With these figures and reports from unions, I would expect the job market to pick up and the unemployment rate to decline.
Saving in Tough Times
Nevertheless, the economic downturn of the past few years has taught us several lessons and brought home certain economic realities. There are increasingly contract-based/ part-time and temporary work arrangements; and that workers whose skills have become redundant will have difficulty finding new jobs. In such situations, workers can no longer assume continuous and ever-rising income but instead have to contend with possible periods of unemployment or reduction in earnings.
This brings me to the point about the value of an individual saving account for workers. Such an account will allow workers some financial support that they can fall back on in times of emergencies, such as unemployment, and will help keep them self-reliant. NTUC, with its affiliated unions, has started on practical approaches to start up individual savings account for members. This has yielded encouraging results, as shown by the 3 taxi associations of CityCab, Comfort and TIBS, which came together with their respective taxi companies to implement a successful individual savings scheme model. The Kindergarten and Childcare Centres’ Staff Union (KCCSU) too has successfully implemented a similar scheme with NTUC Childcare Co-operative. These models were based on co-contributions by employers and employees, and have the flexibility of allowing employees to withdraw their savings after a certain period.
We are encouraged by these models and hope to encourage more of such schemes among unions and members.
Conclusion
With the increasingly fast pace of change, it is essential for the labour movement to respond with action plans quickly to help our workers meet the new challenges of tomorrow. With a more upbeat economic outlook, let us also continue to show our support in community projects. On this note, I would like to express my appreciation to all who have given their contributions so generously.
Thank you.
