I first joined the labour movement in 1996. I left in 1999. I am now back with NTUC and the labour movement again, after a lapse of five years.
Having been back for nearly three months now, the one impression that struck me most was how much has changed in these five years.
The pace of business restructuring is much faster. Now, hardly a day goes by without us hearing and reading about outsourcing moves in the media and on the ground.
The scope of wage negotiation is much broader too. Competitive based wage system, MVC, KPI for bonus and profit sharing, portable benefits etc, have become common terminologies in labour-management relations.
The focus on skills development is also a lot sharper. We are now equipping our workers with not only functional skills to do their jobs more productively, but also developmental skills for them to be more employable and adaptable.
These changes are positive changes.
They will help companies based in Singapore to compete better in the global markets.
They will also help our Singaporean workers to become more attractive to employers and global enterprises.
We must continue to embrace these changes, so that our economy and our workers can stay ahead, always.
At the same time, we must continue to stay in touch with our workers. We must know their concerns and their anxieties, and do our best to prepare them to keep up with this fast pace of change.
Our rank and file workers today have two basic concerns: job security and income stability.
The first concern of our workers is that their jobs are becoming less secured.
This is because on the one hand, workers could be retrenched or re-deployed due to more reasons now than ever before: be it downsizing, outsourcing or off-shoring. The list will only get longer as companies look for more ways to survive.
Yet on the other hand, job offerings are no longer as plentiful as before. This is especially so for older and lower-skilled workers.
The second concern of our workers is the trend towards having a less stable income.
With a flexible wage system, some workers are concerned that their annual salary may fluctuate too much in response to fluctuation in business performance. This is especially so for the lower income workers, because they are more likely to face financial difficulty if and when the MVC component is cut or reduced.
How should we respond to these two concerns of our workers?
As a labour movement, if we try to resist business and wage restructuring, the outcome will not be a better one for our workers.
In fact, our workers will be worse off – the Singapore economy will become less competitive; and the Singaporean workforce will become less attractive.
Our economic growth will slow further. Our unemployment rate will rise.
When these happen, our workers will feel even less secured with their jobs. There will be more retrenchments, and income instability will become an irrelevant issue for an increasing number of workers as they become jobless.
This is clearly not the way ahead for the labour movement. This is also not the way ahead for our tripartite partners.
What we can do, and have been doing all these years, is to look after our workers’ interests in the best way possible, not just for the short term, but in a more sustainable manner - by updating our strategies, and coming up with new approaches all the time.
Basically, we believe that a faster pace of restructuring and greater flexibility in our wage system does not necessarily lead to less job security or less pay.
In fact, it can be the other way around.
Take outsourcing for example. A report by US Department of Commerce shows that Singapore is the second fastest growing outsourcing hub for American businesses.
In the past, when we were enjoying high growth rates of 8% to 10%, we could protect the interest of our workers through full employment.
In the future, in a world of keener competition, it is not realistic to expect a return to a sustained period of high growth and full employment.
Even if we can create enough jobs for everyone, it may still not necessarily lead us back to full employment, as the growing mismatch in skills and expectations could still lead to structural unemployment.
This is why the best way forward to look after the interest of our workers is to equip them with the hard skills to be productive, soft skills to be adaptable, and customer-centric skills to be competitive.
This combination of hard, soft and customer-centric skills is a powerful combination.
Firstly, by becoming more productive with hard skills, our workers can help reduce cost and improve cost-competitiveness of businesses here. More of our existing jobs will be upgraded and saved. New jobs will be created too.
In this way, the concern for job security need not worsen, even if we are not able to go back to full employment.
Secondly, by becoming more adaptable with soft skills, our workers can have skills that are applicable to multiple industries and businesses. They will be able to adapt and grow in more sectors than one.
In this way, structural unemployment can be kept to the minimum as more workers stay employable, and employed.
Last but not least, by becoming more competitive with customer-centric skills, our workers can help not just to reduce the cost of business, but increase revenue too. They will be able to contribute to the profitability of their organizations, on both sides of the profit equation.
In this way, flexible wage system could lead to better rewards for the workers, rather than a progressive decline in variable payment.
There is still much we need to do to secure these positive outcomes for our workers.
Fortunately, we are not starting from base zero.
We started the SDF some 25 years ago to promote functional training.
In 1998, we launched the SRP to draw more attention to developmental training. I am happy to say that response has been most encouraging.
By now, more than 155,000 workers have been upgraded under SRP with certified skills at the NTC2, NTC3, NITEC, NSRS and Diploma levels.
What is even more encouraging is that about 50% of the trainees are more than 40 years old and this number is growing. For the last 6 months, more than 60% of the trainees are more than 40 years old; 52% are employed by the SMEs; and 55% have secondary and below education qualification.
Building on this firm foundation, our next challenge is to continue to upgrade the hard skills and soft skills of our workers, and at the same time pay more attention to customer-centric skills that are so much in demand, for us to survive and thrive as a value creation economy and value innovation workforce.
How far we can go and how fast we can progress depends much on the concerted efforts of the tripartite partners – our unions, the management and the various government agencies.
The labour movement is fully committed to do our part. We have been a strong advocate and supporter of training and skills upgrading.
Today, by launching the NTUC LearningHub, we are taking yet another step forward on this long journey of skills development and skills re-development. LearningHub will invest and roll out more new courses for our workers, especially in soft skills and customer centric skills.
We look forward to the support of the unions, MOM, WDA and the business community as we grow and expand the scope and course offerings of NTUC LearningHub.
Together, as tripartite partners, I am confident that we can succeed in sustaining the growth of the Singapore Economy; the profitability of Singapore-based companies; and the social progress of our Singaporean workers in this fast changing world, for a long time to come.
Thank you, friends and comrades.
