Dear Sister Thana, President, HSEU
Brother Patrick, Executive Secretary, HSEU
Brothers and Sisters from our various branches
Good afternoon and welcome to our HSEU Special Delegates' Conference.
Standing here today, I feel a deep sense of pride. In 1989, with the corporatisation of the public healthcare sector, HSEU started as a house union for the Health Corporation of Singapore staff with about 1,000 members. The birth of the union was an uphill task as we struggled to find a foot-hold as an independent union striving to serve members by providing good industrial relations among other benefits. Slowly but surely, the union grew.
In 2005, I took over the mantle as General Secretary of HSEU and together with the Executive Council then, we determined to better the lives of more healthcare colleagues by strengthening our voice as a union through membership growth. That same year, we started engaging with the National University Hospital Employees' Union (NUHEU) on a possible merger to benefit staff in the healthcare industry. In 2006, the merger was successfully completed and our membership jumped by 25% to 9,438. This merger allowed us to represent all healthcare workers in the restructured clusters and gave us great leverage during negotiations through the sharing of information and best practices.
Times have changed, just like nurses nowadays no longer wear little caps as part of their uniform, the profile of our workers has not remained stagnant. As with other industries, the healthcare sector has been seeing a growing group of professionals, managers and executives. For example, nurses usually enter the industry with a diploma and after a few years on the job, will seek to improve themselves by taking on post-graduate and degree qualifications. Over the years, HSEU has been focused on building good labour management relations and cultivating an environment of trust. This has resulted in an enlightened management who understand that suppressing issues is not a solution and who have been open to discussion. With this, instead of reducing our membership, PME membership in HSEU has been on the rise. In fact, about 70% of all members who have joined us in the past 3 years are PMEs with diploma qualifications and above.
Like HSEU, there are many other rank and file unions that have a growing base of PME members who need protection and representation. With the proper framework in place, the Labour Movement will be able to represent and meet the needs of our PME members. It is timely for the laws to be reviewed to take into consideration the changing profile of our workforce and to ensure that there is ample protection for all workers.
In closing, it gives me great pleasure to share that as of June 2013, HSEU has reached 30,000 members! This is a great milestone for what used to be a small house union with 1,000 members. The past years have been fulfilling for the union. With all your hard work and support, we have tripled our size within 7 years. Well done HSEU-ians!
HSEU will be reaching another milestone next year which marks our 25th anniversary. I am filled with anticipation to see what new heights HSEU will scale in the coming years ahead.
Thank you!
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