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First of all, thank you Deputy Prime Minister for choosing the Labour Movement to launch Forward Singapore.
It is a very significant move for the future of Singapore that matters to all of us, whether it is for our business partners or working class. This collective effort, I think, for NTUC, if I can speak on behalf of all my brothers and sisters here, we fully support. We do not know the answers yet, but we will participate to co-create the future that we want. Would you agree, brothers and sisters?
There are many conversations where NTUC represents a key interests of workers. We intend to champion the different interests across all different segments. Thankfully, this is not altogether new to us.
We have worked with the government and our employers collaboratively on the future of senior workers, dealing practically with retirement adequacy issues by extending retirement ages, re-employment ages, restoring CPF amidst very difficult conditions. We can look at lower-wage workers where we move wages up for different segments of lower-wage workers and made tremendous progress and in the midst of implementing across 250,000 or so lower-wage workers that will create not just an idea, but in technical terms, a more inclusive society even when we thankfully did it while costs of living were rising.
We are also addressing the PMEs that traditionally does not park under NTUC’s mindshare because they were independent and capable to fend for themselves.
But in the increasingly complex world, even PME that are 40s or 50s are expressing anxieties which is why we started the PMEs Task Force where we have submitted some feedback to the Government and recommendations to the Government so that we can also champion the interests of this vulnerable PME class,
And in the latest conversations that we have, we are looking at the young in Singapore – including our own Young NTUC, who energised and set the direction so that we can hopefully meet the aspirations and needs of young working professionals.
Within all these cases is a workers’ compact, that we want NTUC to be the representative of the working people of Singapore, to build that compact as a sub-system of the larger thing that the DPM and 4G leadership will do for Singapore as an overall social compact.
There’s always not enough question and discussion time when the Government organises the different dialogues, right? So NTUC will dive deeper. Let us organise within the Labour Movement – our workers’ compact we have started sometime back, and dive deeper into these issues so that we have more time to put on the table suggestions and recommendations that we think will be useful to forge this social compact with the Government leaders and the 4G team.
In that process, we welcome our partners from the Singapore National Employers Federation. You have been a very good partner in championing workers’ interests unlike other places. Thank you for doing that and we welcome you into this as well, and we can see what we can do together as we prepare for Forward Singapore and participate.
So, brothers and sisters, can I ask for a resounding round of applause in support of Forward Singapore?
Thank you.
