By Ramesh Subbaraman
Singapore’s tripartite partners consisting of the government, unions and employers have jointly identified three priority areas for the coming years.
These were shared and discussed with representatives from all parties at the Singapore Tripartism Forum (STF) themed “Future Ready Tripartism” and held at the Devan Nair Institute for Employment and Employability on 26 November 2014.
Delivering the opening address at the Forum on behalf of the tripartite prtners, NTUC Secretary-General (SG) Lim Swee Say explained the first task was to include Professionals, Managers and Executives (PMEs) under the direct coverage of tripartism.
He said: “Some may wonder why we need to do this. Is this to help the unions grow their union membership? In actual fact, there is a more important reason for this move.”
PMEs- Fast Growing Group
SG Lim stressed that PMEs are fast becoming the mainstream of the future workforce and just like the rank-and-file workers, they will face growing challenges related to employment and employability, workplace representation, retrenchment and job placement.
There is a need to respond to their anxieties faster and help them with their aspirations better, so that from the longterm perspective, Singapore can maintain industrial peace in a future economy dominated by PMEs.
SG Lim noted that revisions to the Industrial Relations Act had been tabled in Parliament and the Manpower Ministry issued the tripartite guidelines on extending the scope of union representation tor PMEs on 26 November at the STF.
Productivity- A Tripartite Movement
The second priority area is to make productivity a tripartite effort in all sectors of the economy and for all sizes of companies.
SG Lim cautioned that with higher business costs and keener competition, productivity has become even more critical for not just management but unions and workers too.
SG Lim urged the tripartite partners to work closely to look for bottlenecks of growth and break them together with the help of new technology and new ways of doing things.
Be Future Ready
The third priority is to be future ready with innovation, productivity and adaptability.
SG noted that workers are concerned that robots may take away their jobs while businesses are concerned that new competition may take away the nation’s growth.
He added: “If we are more future ready than others, instead of losing our jobs to the robots and losing our growth to the competitors, we can jointly create a world of future manufacturing, future services, future enterprises, future workers, future jobs, and future careers right here in Singapore.”
SG Lim is confident that the tripartite partners can work closely together in partnership to transform businesses and the workforce to be more future ready.
Tripartite partners present at the Forum included: Senior Minister of State for Manpower, Dr Amy Khor; Senior Minister of State for Trade and Industry, Mr Lee Yi Shyan; President of the Singapore National Employers Federation (SNEF), Dr Robert Yap; and Immediate Past President of SNEF, Mr Stephen Lee.
Source: NTUC This Week
