There is a role for both the management and the unions in the public sector to help make it dynamic, progressive and future-ready for the challenges of tomorrow.
NTUC Secretary-General (SG) Chan Chun Sing was making that point to some 400 union and management leaders at the Public Sector Union Management gathering on 6 July 2017.
The Challenges
“This is a responsibility not only of the permanent secretaries, deputy secretaries and chief executives. All unionists from the public sector have an equal responsibility to support and work with the management to achieve this goal. “As union leaders, we earn our pay by mobilising the ground to stand solidly behind the directions set and agreed upon at the management level,” he said.
The next challenge is to ensure labour-management relations in the public sector remain solid.
This will help harness the potential of each and every public servant.
There is also a need to build up the leadership of both the public service management and unions by inducting those with the potential to lead the ground in the future.
“It is our responsibility to ensure that we groom another generation of union leaders ready to take the relationship to the next higher plane in the next 10 to 15 years,” emphasised SG Chan.
