Mr Speaker, Sir, thank you for the opportunity to participate in this debate for the very first time.
As a trade unionist, I am concerned about the issues pertaining to our workers, in particular the low income and the elderly.
These are the groups that will be most affected by economic changes as well as the widening income gap. Sir, if we do not address these issues well, the gap between the haves and the have nots will continue to widen causing tremendous social frictions which would ultimately impact our overall economic performance and growth. I am glad that this year budget has addressed some of these issues to build an inclusive society and a stronger Singapore
At the NTUC National Delegates Conference in December 2011, the Labour Movement shares its vision for 2015 of helping workers to achieve better jobs, improve wages and enhance their well-being. We hope to accomplish this through productivity gains, so that wage increases and improvements in employment terms are sustainable, and that workers can enjoy the fruits of our economic progress.
We thank the Government for encouraging foreign and local investments which generated jobs for Singaporeans, Our unemployment rate is an envy to those countries experiencing high unemployment. We firmly believe that to have a job is the best welfare we can give to our workers and we in the Labour Movement are committed to do our part with our Tripartite partners to grow our economy and to keep our workers employed and improve their wages.
Low Income Singaporeans
The Ministry of Manpower and the Department of Statistics, in its report in October 2011 stated that the nominal monthly income of those at the 20th percentile rose from S$1,200 in 2001 to S$1,400 in 2010. Adjusted for inflation, this worked out to a real growth rate of only 0.3 per cent over the decade, or almost zero per cent growth annually. The income of those at the 50th percentile showed a similar trend. I noted some progress since but in my view, we have a lot to do to grow productivity and to sustain real wage increase of 30% over a 10 year period to improve the standard of living of Singaporeans.
I am particularly concerned about the bottom 20% of our workers who have put in a hard day’s work but still have to struggle to see to the basic needs of their families. The correlation between work and well being does not seem to work for this class of workers.
We are glad to note the recent improvement by the 14 town councils, who stepped up to help our cleaners to bring their wages up from $750 to $1,000. This is commendable, however, there are many other cleaners out there who are not employed by the town councils, earning $600 - $700 a month, but are similarly looking for a breakthrough in their wages. The same also applies to our security officers, who have to work long hours to earn basic median monthly wages of S$600 and after clocking in many hours of overtime, they are then able to earn gross monthly median wages of S$1,300. This is also the case for our bus drivers.
Bus Drivers
To enhance our public transport system by adding about 800 buses on the road over the next five years is commendable. Much has been said about why over $1 billion will be given to profitable public transport companies. I have no principled objection to this move. After all, there are all kinds of grants, incentives and tax credits given to the commercial companies all the time. It all depends what the money is used for.
If $1 billion brings a better bus service to commuters, better pay for workers to join the industry, it is money properly spent. If everything goes to shareholders and they become $1 billion richer, I think all Singaporeans will have a problem. So to me the real question is: how will the $1 billion be spent?
I think a large chunk will go towards purchasing the new buses, which I presume left on their own, the bus companies will not invest because it is a money losing investment. However, the additional bus fleet serves also to aggravate the shortage of bus drivers unless something is done to expand the pool.
Let me relate the bus driver’s plight to illustrate this point. The life of the bus drivers can start as early as 4am, they will have to arrive at the bus depot by 5am. They then check the bus thoroughly to ensure its tiptop condition and start the bus service at 5.30am. They have their 20 to 35 minutes break for meals at around 9.30am (but if bus arrive late, on the ground they call it ‘lambat’, they may only have 10 minutes for their meal and toilet break) and they will continue to drive with 2 or 3 short breaks of 7-8 minutes in interchange. They usually finish work at around 3pm with a couple of hours of overtime. Working overtime daily is a norm for bus drivers to supplement their monthly basic pay ranging from $1,375 to $1,700. This helps them to make ends meet and also compounded by the shortage of bus drivers. Encountering difficult commuters is also common. A slip of the tongue, momentary loss of cool, means getting a complaint letter, and end of the day, bonus or increment can get cut. Exceed the slow speed at junction of interchange, and again you can get fined.
It is no wonder that Singaporean find this a tough job. Unless we address the well-being of bus drivers’, the demands on the public transport workforce cannot keep up with the expectations of commuters and the improvement in hardware.
Our enlightened members in the National Transport Workers’ Union (NTWU) look to the Government to help their companies to explore ways to increase productivity and help to keep cost low so as to channel the savings to workers in the form of better wages and benefits. The bus drivers have feedback previously for the Government to look into other ways of helping PTOs to reduce their cost for public transport which I understand including ERP cost of $30 million per year and high rental cost of Depots, and they hope that these savings can be shared with the drivers and contribute to improving their wages.
By the commendable act of the Government to partner the PTOs in providing funding for the 550 buses are welcome by the union; however we would like the Minister to ensure that part of these savings by the PTOs will be ploughed back to our workers.
Tripartism
Besides the cleaners, security officers and bus drivers, there are many other sectors of workers that are experiencing different sets of challenges. We recognized that the Labour Movement cannot do it alone by ourselves and we call upon our tripartite partners to take a bigger role in raising productivity and in return through productivity gains, our workers will expect a fair share.
The Prime Minister, at our NTUC National Delegates Conference said, “Tripartism is our national treasure”. We have settled our many problems through tripartism, and we are committed to take tripartism one step further towards the Labour Movement 2015 – Tripartism for All.
The question I have is that, does every Government ministry, department and statutory board appreciate this treasure? From my observation, the spirit of tripartism varies across these agencies.
Take the National Environment Agency (NEA) for example. I understand they are proactively looking into a working group comprising of Tripartite partners to work towards the improving the work and the wages of our low wage cleaners. Tripartism is alive and well at NEA. Or take the Workforce Development Agency, they have formed a close partnership with NTUC in developing and delivering training programmes for workers.
But there will other agencies, where collaboration is non existence, or where there is only lip service. This will not do. Every Government agency must understand, whatever industry of activity you are promoting or regulating, it cannot fulfill its mission unless it pays attention to the people working in the industry or activity. And if workers are a key thrust of your strategy to achieve your mission, the LM will need to be your partner.
I would like to call upon the various government agencies to live up to the spirit of Tripartism. Build upon our national treasure.
These could be in the form of the Ministry of Home Affairs championing the cause of low wage security guards, Ministry of National Development for the low wage construction and landscape workers and even the Ministry of Trade and Industry for the low wage retail workers.
Elderly Workers
On the elderly, my concern is the strong prejudices against employing senior citizens, even with the enactment of the re-employment law in January this year. As it is, many in their 50s are increasingly finding it difficult to be employed. I am heartened that the Special Employment Credit will soon be put in place. The Government would need to continue to pro-actively engage employers to help overcome this biasness and if necessary to look into other incentives to encourage their employment. Having a job would help boost the dignity of the elderly and also lightens the cost of our welfare and healthcare systems.
CPF
I am glad the Government has responded positively on the call by NTUC and the then Vice President of NTUC, Mr Cyrille Tan, to review the CPF contributions for older workers. Sir, on the CPF issue, I am concerned about workers not having sufficient savings in their CPF accounts to retire with financial independence.
I would like to make reference to the 1984 Report of the committee on the Problems of the aged by the late Minister, Mr Howe Yoon Chong from the Ministry of Health. The report mentioned the Government’s ultimate goal of raising the rate of CPF contribution to a maximum of 50% of an employee’s salary and the CPF withdrawal age to be further raised to 65 in later years. I believe the proposal was mooted with the objective of enabling workers to accumulate sufficient funds in their CPF account for retirement.
During the Singapore Perspectives 2012 Forum organized by the Institute of Policy Studies on 16 January, a Professor from the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy shared on Retirement Adequacy measured by Income Replacement Ratio, which is the proportion of the working income that one have at retirement and he shared that the current CPF contribution of 36% is not sufficient for retirement, and suggested 42% may be a more sustainable figure, this is on assumption if there is no withdrawal of CPF for housing. This again seems to suggest the inadequacy of the CPF savings to support the retirement needs of our workers.
CPF contribution had been cut 3 times from 25% to 10% in 1986, 20% to 10% in 1999, and 16% to 13% in 2003. However, the restoration from 10% to 20% and 13% to 16% both took 8 years to restore. This excludes the further CPF cuts for workers age 50 years and above.
To illustrate my point of how much Singapore workers have sacrificed in their CPF savings, by taking the case of a 30 year-old worker who earned S$1000 per month in 1985 and the employer contribution was 25% then. If this 25% contribution had not been cut, the worker would have accumulated an additional of more than S$30,000 in his account by 2011, ie 26 years later (excluding interests and wage increment). If he or she earned S$3,000 per month in 1985, the sacrifice would be more than S$90,000.
I have illustrated this for various reasons. Firstly to acknowledge the sacrifice of our enlightened workers way back in 1986s and many of them are the elderly of today and because of their sacrifice, we progress as a nation to where we are today. Sir, the $30,000 would have meant a lot to our low wage workers.
Secondly, I would like for the Government to review and look into a long term plan to determine a reasonable CPF rate for our people including the young ones so that when their turns come for them to retire they would have a nest egg to retire gracefully with dignity.
Lastly, I would like to appeal to our Government, please no more CPF cut. I therefore urge the Government not to implement a one-size fit all policy should there be a need to cut CPF in the future.
In conclusion, I would like to commend DPM Tharman for delivering an inclusive, caring as well as a pro-Singaporeans budget that goes a long way to help the weak and truly it is more blessed to give than to receive and on this note, Mr Speaker, Sir, I support the Budget.
