Good Evening to our Special Guest, Brother Lim Swee Say, Secretary-General of NTUC and also to our tripartite partners Brother Stephen Lee, President SNEF and Brother Ong Yen Her from MOM.
Central Committee Members, Union Leaders, Distinguished Guests, Brothers and Sisters
1 NTUC during its Corporate Planning Seminar in July this year discussed about how we can better outreach and be the voice for the PMEs. Again during the Pre-NDC in September, there was unanimous support for outreach to PMEs which culminated with our Extraordinary Delegates Conference last month embracing a resolution for the Labour Movement to outreach to our PMEs to better serve their needs as they will gradually become the rank and file of tomorrow.
2 As almost all of our NTUC depts and units do outreach and work with PMEs directly or indirectly, a NTUC PME Alignment Team was formed some 3 months back in September bringing together to discuss, explore and synergise and most importantly, to align our efforts to support our unions (with emphasis) and the Labour Movement towards this cause.
3 In the past few months, we have seen positive success at the unions. In partnership with our unions, we have seen professional chapters from ESU, HSEU, BATU, MIWU, UWEEI spawning effective outreach efforts. In fact, through this, our unions have themselves grown in membership and voice.
4 In the past months, we have also seen our Employment and Employability Institute and our NTUC LearningHub’s PME training arm Next-U expanding its outreach and placements to more PMEs.
5 Our Women’s Development Secretariat has also been promoting flexible work arrangements for female PMEs and Family Development Unit through U-Family rolling out innovative programmes for busy PME parents.
6 It is also very encouraging to note that our Membership Department and Young NTUC too have put in place numerous activities, programmes and benefits for PMEs in the past months.
7 Today’s book launch is pivotal in that it marks the start of our series of alignment efforts by our Labour Movement to better serve our PME members and also to outreach to the PME populace at large.
8 This book is the result of feedback from our union, leaders, IR practitioners and members wanting something specially catered for beyond Rank and File to the PMEs. What so different about this book? This book is written in a handy FAQ guide format and from a union perspective. It also highlights what can be done at the tripartite level through the new vehicle called the Tripartite Mediation Process which started only on 1 Feb this year. Kudos to the panel as three PME members’ cases were effectively resolved the past 3 months via this Tripartite Mediation Panel.
9 We did an in house video earlier with our very own talents but some professional help. We are using it to share some of the creative thinking behind the PME Alignment Team’s efforts and what some members hope to see. In short, we understand the needs of our PME populace and hope to serve them even better as part of our overall efforts to outreach and engage this about 150,000 PME membership of ours and beyond.
10 Some suggestions (not exhaustive) which we are seriously exploring are:
(i) The setting up of a professional Workplace Advisory Service to serve PMEs;
(ii) Strengthening our Employment and Employability efforts in view of the uncertain global economic outlook;
(iii) Working with freelancer communities to provide a value proposition to them;
11 As a special privilege to all, we only printed limited copies of this hard copy book as they will only be given to attendees this evening. However, I earlier received very resounding feedback and will also be giving this book to all guests and delegates at our upcoming National Delegates’ Conference next week.
12 As I end my opening address, I would like to thank my Legal Services Department team for their untiring efforts and tolerating my critique of the many drafts as well as the PME alignment Unit for putting together today’s event. Also, our PME Alignment Team members for the invaluable feedback and ideas.
