Mr Cedric Foo, Group Chief Financial Officer, ST Engineering
Mr Tan Pek Tong, Deputy President, ST Engineering Land Systems (STELS)
Mr Tan Kok Yam, Chief Executive, SkillsFuture Singapore (SSG)
Sister Jessie Lim, President, ST Engineering Staff Union (STESU),
Distinguished guests, partners,
Sisters and Brothers,
A very good afternoon to all. Today is a very good event that we have embarked on because it is an innovation of tripartism in action. If you look at what we can do together as partners, we can do a lot.
NTUC has partnered ST Engineering across many different projects. I remember visiting ST Engineering Land Systems last year, and they showcased the collaboration that my union, ST Engineering Staff Union (STESU) and ST Engineering Land Systems had in terms of the innovative projects.
I remember the Robotic Spray Painting solution, where you not only upgraded your own productivity to spray paint a tank, but also improved workers’ welfare, safety and wages through the Company Training Committee (CTC) Grant.
NTUC has a close nexus to different government agencies, including SkillsFuture Singapore (SSG). And we do a lot on the training side.
Today marks the first time that we are bringing all three parties into essentially a new innovation. How will it pan out? Well, I suspect we will have a 70-80% chance of success. To fulfill a 100% success, may we adopt a humble attitude, learn from each other, and see where are the areas that we can tweak to make this a successful innovation.
Benefits of the SkillsFuture Queen Bee ecosystem with this new tripartite partnership
The majority here today are workers for the SMEs.
Like I said, if I partner ST Engineering, we can achieve some things. If I partner the Government, we can achieve outcomes for workers. But in this innovation, where NTUC brings out our capabilities into a Queen Bee concept, NTUC wants to partner you, across all the 40 different companies that are represented here, to make your business better, so that the SME sector in Singapore can thrive, and you can take better care of our workers.
My interest at NTUC is to outreach to a segment of workers that has been traditionally hard-to-reach. Because some companies can be 5 people, 20 people, 50 people, even 200. It requires a lot of marginal effort from NTUC and our unions to move into this space, and to move business and workforce transformation.
But with the Queen Bee concept that we managed to partner ST Engineering on the onset, and now having SSG backing us up, I think we have a real chance to not only do the good work in small parts but to scale this effort in this Queen Bee. I’m very thankful, happy and hopeful that this will succeed.
For the SME bosses, each incremental effort matters. At NTUC, we have embarked on different levels of innovation. We will latch on to good ideas, innovations and we will do our best to scale.
So for the towkays and brothers and sisters here working at SMEs, I ask you to spread the word in what we are doing. SMEs can potentially partner the Government, NTUC and ST Engineering for better business.
I think that must be one of the motivators for you to participate in the ST Engineering’s Suppliers Forum today. You are part and parcel of the ST Engineering’s networks.
If I were your consultant, I would say that partnering ST Engineering will bring you better business, at least a steady source of work and order books. If you partner SSG, you will have some level of Government support for upgrading your workforce. When you partner NTUC with our capabilities, we hope to bring some ideas to you in your business transformation, in real areas of Operation and Technology Roadmapping, that eventually translates to a more productive workforce for your business. And, partner NTUC through the Government’s CTC Grant to add to your bottom-line considerations.
Therefore, your interests are served in the majority of your business consideration.
One, building a better ecosystem upwards to your main customer, ST Engineering.
Two, leveraging all the different Government grants, either directly from SSG or from NTUC for business and workforce transformation.
Three, with NTUC and our unions, you can count that we are going for win-win. We want you to succeed as a business so that our workers can be taken care of.
Call to action for SMEs
For our SMEs here today, I count on you to be activists for your own community. Partner with your own trade associations and chambers (TACs), as well as your business associations to spread the word.
Come on board the Queen Bee programme and see where we can move the hard-to-reach SMEs to support your business. With NTUC networks, we will do our very best to not only support you directly as a business, or indirectly as a business. Importantly, we will support our workers’ upgrade.
Beyond this room and beyond Singapore’s shores, the world is changing rapidly, even as we innovate as tripartite partners. Today, more and more uncertainties that are potentially destructive are emerging in the world, and the initial signs of recovery are now a little bit more of a question-mark. So when we look beyond supporting innovation in our sector, what must we do?
As responsible institutions and fellow Singaporeans to maximise our chance to keep Singapore as a shining red dot, I would say tripartism is one key to strengthen ourselves internally.
to forge common interests, whether you are a businessman or a senior employee in a business,
to forge livelihoods for our workers, and
to build robustness and resilience as a company, as a people, as a country.
Closing Remarks
If you look at what we are doing today, we will strengthen the companies. We will ensure better lives and livelihoods for our workers. But collectively, how can we strengthen our Singapore in the way forward as well?
Maximise our national chances of success in a very troubled world. Maximise the potential of our economy as we restructure the economy to ensure the viability of SMEs, and to ensure that our workers have good lives and livelihoods.
How can we do this? One, is to have a real adaptive mindset of taking on new challenges like what we are doing today, and innovation at the tripartite level, almost unheard of in the world. Two, with these ideas, do the necessary real things, like MOUs, and make our very best effort to see the project succeed.
When it succeeds, have the dare and confidence to share, so that different companies and sectors of workers can benefit from our innovation today.
Your every action matters. Let’s put our best foot forward. Let’s strategise. Let’s put into action all the different ideas, so that we can succeed for ourselves, for our companies, and for our Singapore.
Thank you.
