Dear Comrades, Ladies and Gentlemen,
First and foremost, I would like to offer my heartiest congratulations to the central council of STU. The same members of the central council have returned unopposed for another four more years. This shows that STU members trust this current team of leaders to represent them fairly and to advance their interests.
People are the key to the success in any organisation. More often than not, leadership quality is usually the single most important criteria for sustaining organisational performance. Lord MacCartney, a British trade envoy who despaired over China’s future after frustrating audiences with Emperor Gao Zong in 1793 likened the country to an “old warship, which a fortunate succession of able and vigilant officers has contrived to keep afloat for all these years, but when an insufficient man happens to have the command upon deck…She may not sink outright; but she will drift sometime as a wreck, and will then be dashed to pieces on the shore.”
This illustrates the importance of 2 critical success factors to any organisation: the quality of leadership, as well as effective leadership succession.
Learning and development opportunities are key in ensuring the quality of union leadership. To broaden our union leaders’ skill sets and deepen their understanding of business trends, NTUC initiated programmes like the NTUC Training Awards Scheme for union leaders. We also organised learning exploration trips to China and India to raise their awareness of India and China’s development potential and its implications for Singapore business and workers.
Any organisation is only as successful as its current group of leaders. To maintain the quality of leadership, we need to continuously develop and nurture the next cadre of leaders. In fact, many successful organisations assess their management team not only on delivery of organisational results, but also on how well they groom their own successors.
Leadership renewal should be carried out periodically so that younger unionists with leadership potential can be groomed to take up more important roles. This will ensure that the union leadership is continuously rejuvenated with young capable unionists at the helm. Without fresh leaders to build on what we have achieved, the union movement can only decline.
The older generation of leaders also have a key role in ensuring the continued success of our unions. They have led the unions and workers through difficult economic periods. They understand instinctively the strengths of tripartism and how to contribute effectively as a key anchor under tripartism. These long-serving union leaders will continue to have a critical role to share their experiences and imbue the same fighting spirit in our next generation of union leaders. In this way, we will have a good balance of fresh and experienced union leadership in our labour movement.
In this vein, I am glad to know that all the industrial unions have set their leadership renewal targets to recruit new leaders at both the branch as well as the Exco level. Out of the 380 new branch officials in 2004, 28% were aged 35 and below, with 18% in the executive committees.
To attract a larger pool of potential young leaders, NTUC has recently launched the Young NTUC. Through this, we aim to refresh the image of the labour movement and provide a central platform for young unionists to carry out their activities and programmes. It will also foster a greater sense of identity among the 150,000 youth members who are aged 35 years old and below.
Unionists provide a personal face to our members. It is important for the unionists to have an intuitive feel of what our members need and want. Allow yourselves to think and act out of the box in order to serve our members better. The teaching assistants scheme is a good example of how we can provide win-win solutions, to provide more jobs for Singaporeans, and yet be able to enhance the productivity of teachers. I urge all delegates here this morning to think of new ideas, implement them and share them with other unions and NTUC so that collectively we can serve our members better.
It will always be challenging to balance career with union work. However, I have seen union leaders who have managed to strike this balance through their dedication. Regardless of how tired they are, they touched the lives of their members by providing assistance and advice to members whenever necessary. We need leaders with both passion and knowledge, and commit to bringing out these same qualities in the next generation.
You in the Singapore Teachers’ Union have shown that there are young members who are willing and able to take on the role of leadership. You now have one of the youngest Executive Councils. Swithun Lowe probably feel like a grand old man! He has told me that his task is clear – to guide the younger leaders over the next couple of years, and hand over to them to take the STU to the next level.
Thank you.
