1. This year we celebrate NTUC’s 45th Anniversary. How did we get here? Let me go further back. There were many unions formed after the Second World War. Unions fought for workers’ rights, better wages, and better conditions of work.
2. In 1954, unionists joined in the convening of the People’s Action Party. The majority of the convenors were trade unionists. With a political party, unionists would influence the shape of Singapore. First was to achieve independence, then to win elections to form the government, to build the country, provide good jobs, education, housing and healthcare for workers.
3. In 1961 the PAP split. The pro-communists left to form the Barisan Sosialis. They took with them many unions. On 6 September 1961 Devan Nair led some like-minded unionists to form the NTUC, aligned with the non-communist PAP. That was 45 years ago.
4. That is briefly the origin of the close ties between the NTUC and PAP. The PAP is NTUC’s political party, although we keep the institutions separate.
5. Our symbiotic relationship was reaffirmed by a resolution passed by the delegates of the NTUC at a conference in 1980, and has been reaffirmed every year in our May Day Resolutions.
6. The symbiotic relationship is effected through people – unionists and PAP members. Many are both unionists and PAP members.
7. Unionists have stood for elections under the PAP banner. Some PAP MPs have joined the labour movement to serve workers. I myself joined the NTUC in 1981, shortly after being elected to Parliament. Over the years, there are more than 40 persons who have been “labour MPs”. Our unions have a voice in Cabinet and in Parliament.
8. In recent years, the NTUC and unions have been a far stronger group in Parliament than all of the opposition combined.
9. We have used this influence constructively.
10. Our common focus has been jobs. Yes, it has been the common focus of both NTUC and the PAP. Not just jobs, but better jobs, so workers can earn more to pay for a better home, send their children to school, and a better quality of life.
11. Overall, life has improved vastly for Singapore workers.
12. But it is not all plain sailing. There have been recessions, spikes in oil prices, and wars. The past 10 years, for example, have been a difficult one for workers. We had the Asian financial crisis, recession in electronics, the Iraq Wars, terrorism, the SARS outbreak. We have had competition from ASEAN, Mexico, the opening up of Central Europe and the rise of China and India.
13. So companies in the manufacturing and service sectors restructured. The public sector has not been spared. We have managed these crises, doing our best to soften the impact on our workers.
14. We bit the bullet – took wage cuts, and CPF cuts. These measures bought us time, and reduced the number of those who were retrenched. For those who lost their jobs, we held job fairs, and provided job-matching services.
15. For families in hardship, we provided financial relief – public transport vouchers and NTUC FairPrice vouchers. We help them educate their children with scholarships and bursaries, and the “Back-to-School” programme.
16. Our co-operatives and NTUC Club played major roles in cushioning the impact on workers, keeping prices down, and providing funds for financial relief.
17. Dealing with retrenchments have been particularly difficult for unionists. On the frontline they have borne the brunt of workers’ anger. Yet they have remained steady, patiently explaining why the retrenchments were necessary, and helped the workers.
18. Some unionists could not control their own emotions, and wept with the retrenched workers. Others managed to keep cool, but wept in private after the day’s work is done.
19. One such unionist is Nithiah Nandan. He and his colleagues dealt with many restructuring exercises in the power-generation sector. On many occasions he and his colleagues faced angry workers.
20. He told me about one such occasion - the outsourcing of the maintenance of street lighting. The workers were angry, and were on the verge of violence. But he bought them time to adjust, got the restructuring phased out, helped each batch of retrenched workers find alternative jobs. But the restructuring was necessary. By opening up to competition, millions of dollars a year of tax payers’ money was saved.
21. Today, at 56 years of age, having served more than 30 years, he should be looking forward to enjoying his retirement in a few years time. Instead, he is fighting cancer. The past year has been difficult for him. The battle is still daunting. But he is a trade unionist, so he is a fighter, and we urge him on.
22. Nithiah Nandan exemplifies the thousands of trade union leaders we are fortunate to have. You have served workers quietly, fought for workers interests, taken personal abuse in your stride, and expected no gratitude in return. I am proud to have been working side by side with you for the past 25 years. I have been honoured to be your Secretary-General for more than 12 years. To all of you, I say, “Thank you for serving the workers of Singapore!”
23. Because we have leaders like you, we were able to implement difficult, but correct policies.
24. Those policies have been proven right. Today the economy is doing well. Job creation is at an all-time high, unemployment is down.
25. Last year our economy grew by 6.4%. 113,000 new jobs were created. Overall unemployment fell to 2.6%. Resident unemployment came down from a high of 5.2% in 2003 to about 3.4% now.
26. Workers are getting higher wage increases, and higher bonuses.
27. A recent AC Nielsen survey shows that we are doing the right things – more people in Singapore than any other country in the world have given the local government a “thumbs-up” for its jobs creation efforts!
28. But our work is not done. It is never done. Our focus is still on jobs – more jobs and better jobs. We will help our low-wage workers earn more by pushing for more jobs in more sectors to be re-designed under the Job Re-creation Programme.
29. We recognize that many older workers want to keep working, to remain engaged with society and enhance their quality of life. We will work with more like-minded employers to offer more employment and re-employment opportunities for older workers.
30. We will not let up on training and retraining.
31. Employment practices are changing. More are being employed on contract, or part time. We will be their voice. We will organize them, and serve them.
32. New sectors are opening up in the economy. We will reach out to employees in these sectors.
33. There are already 150,000 union members below the age of 35 years. We want them to play more active roles in shaping the direction of the trade union movement. We will create platforms for them to do so.
34. Yes, our work is never done. There are many causes now, and more causes will arise in the future. To the young workers, to the young unionists, I say: “Come, step forward! Serve the cause of fellow workers!”
35. We have done much in the past 45 years. There is yet much more to be achieved! But NTUC is on the move. We are the only union movement in the world where union membership is rising every year. We have 460,000 members.
36. A new union, the Education Services Union, was formed recently for the growing education sector. We welcome them to their first May Day Rally! Over the past few days the Health Corporation of Singapore Staff Union and the NUH Employees’ Union have passed resolutions to merge into one union, to consolidate resources to drive membership growth in the medical services sector. Unity is strength. More unions will be set up in other growth sectors. We aim to reach 1 million in membership by 2015.
37. Let us keep reaching out to our workers out there, and keep coming up with new ideas and new programmes to serve them. Together, we can strive for a brighter future for all so there will be many happy May Days to celebrate!
Happy May Day!
