Guest-of-Honour Mr Gan Kim Yong, Acting Minister for Manpower
CEOs and Human Resource practitioners
SMMWU Executive Council and Branch Officials
Mr Koh Juan Kiat, Executive Director, Singapore National Employers Federation
Mr Ong Ye Kung, Chief Executive, Singapore Workforce Development Agency
Mr Ong Yen Her, Division Director, Labour Relations, Ministry of Manpower
Ms Cham Hui Fong, Director, Industrial Relations Department, NTUC
Ladies and gentlemen
Good morning!
A warm welcome to The Singapore Manual and Mercantile Workers’ Union Tripartite Initiative.
The SMMWU is honoured to have 70 chief executive officers and managing directors, general managers and human resource practitioners, and 80 union branch officials, from 30 of our unionised companies participating in this morning’s forum. It is the first large gathering of its kind for The SMMWU, whereby both management representatives and branch officials come together to share information and exchange views and ideas on what can be done to help companies grow competitively, and help union members and workers lead better lives.
This forum is timely, especially when Singapore will face numerous challenges over the next five to ten years, including an ageing population; widening income gap; and maximising the employment rate among Singaporeans. The current fears of recession in the United States and Europe, which would have repercussions on Asia; keener competition from regional countries like China and India; and rising fuel and food prices, are not lost on us too.
In order for Singapore to tackle these challenges effectively, have a competitive workforce, maintain a strong and resilient economy, and stay ahead of other countries, there is a need for the tripartite partners, namely, the business community, the Government and the Labour Movement, to work together and find practical solutions now. In addition to the tripartite partners’ efforts, workers must play their part too in ensuring that they continue to train and upgrade their skills to stay productive and relevant to the changing needs of the economy.
I believe that the spirit of tripartism, which has helped Singapore ride out tough times faster and effectively in the past, is still growing strong today and will continue to serve us well in the future. It is the mutual respect and trust among the three tripartite partners that have helped shape the success of Singapore’s economic development, spur the growth of many companies here and bring better jobs, better wages and better lives for Singaporeans. It is with the same spirit of tripartism that Acting Manpower Minister Gan Kim Yong, and representatives from the NTUC, the Government and the Singapore National Employers Federation, are here this morning to lend us their support for the forum.
As a responsible and inclusive tripartite partner, the Labour Movement, consisting the National Trades Union Congress and its 62 affiliated unions and six associations and 12 social enterprises, has embarked on its Labour Movement 2011 (or LM2011) journey in 2006 to help bridge the three social divides between the young and old; low and high income earners; and local and foreign workers.
Our LM2011 vision is to be an inclusive labour movement that helps to create a better and more meaningful life where working people of all collars, all ages and all nationalities can work, live and play together in Singapore. By first bringing the young and old; low and high income earners; and local and foreign workers into the fold of the Labour Movement, we can then bring them even closer together through our various programmes, initiatives, products, services and assistance. This is not an easy task but we are determined to work closely with the business community and the Government to achieve this vision. The first video that was screened earlier highlights the early successes of our LM2011 vision in 2007 while the second video shows the refreshed Labour Movement branding that would complement our LM2011 efforts over the next few years.
Under the LM2011 vision, the Labour Movement has been working through various joint taskforces, which we termed “Dragon Boats”, to formulate strategies, programmes and initiatives to reach out and serve different groups of stakeholders. The concept of a Dragon Boat aptly depicts the nature of our joint task forces, which need a helmsman to guide them in the right direction; partners who are the rowers to provide the driving force and a drummer to coordinate and streamline the efforts of the whole task force in a smooth and rhythmic manner.
We have launched Dragon Boats to serve the needs of workers beyond the blue and white collars, like Gold Collars who are mainly professionals and management, Silver Collars who are mature workers, and No Collars who are contract and casual workers. Also, we have started Dragon Boats that look into serving the younger generation and aspiring youths, and so on. The SMMWU itself has also embarked on the following Dragon Boats, namely, Gold Collar, Silver Collar, No Collar and the Uth (youth) Movement. Of particular interests to The SMMWU are the Silver Collar and No Collar. Let me elaborate.
The SMMWU is focusing on the Silver Collar as we want to help enhance the re-employment of older workers among our companies. With an ageing population, Singapore’s workforce would also age correspondingly. This will pose a tremendous challenge for our companies and the economy as our workforce will shrink significantly in a matter of one or two decades, which would affect Singapore’s overall competitiveness.
This is the reason why the tripartite partners are pushing for the re-employment of older and retired workers, to allow them to work as long as they can beyond the official retirement age so that they can continue to contribute as part of the workforce to their companies’ results and Singapore’s economy. The tripartite partners have issued the Tripartite Advisory on Re-employment of Older Workers earlier as a practical guide for companies to start early in re-employing older workers at their workplace, ahead of the re-employment legislation that would kick-in in 2012.
We are also concerned with the plight of the No Collars. They are contract and casual workers who are unskilled, earn low wages, are sometimes not paid CPF and thus, cannot benefit from the Government’s Workfare Income Supplement, lack medical and welfare benefits, and do not have insurance coverage. They are often at the losing end, earning low wages because their service provider-employers would bid with the lowest contract prices in order to win contracts from service buyers who go on the cheap sourcing track. At the end of the day, these workers lose out.
To help these contract and casual workers, the tripartite partners have also issued a Tripartite Advisory on Responsible Outsourcing Practices to encourage both service providers and service buyers to abandon cheap sourcing practices and take on the Best Sourcing approach. NTUC has also set up a Unit for Contract & Casual Workers to look into the enhancing these workers’ interests and welfare.
Later this morning, you would get to hear more about these challenges and the practical solutions that the tripartite partners have put in place to tackle them, and we certainly welcome your views and suggestions.
Ladies and gentlemen, the challenges that I mentioned this morning, are no longer “your problem, not mine”. These are actually common challenges faced by companies, union and workers. We only see these challenges from different angles. Thus, it is important for us to work closely together to tackle these challenges head-on and find practical approaches and solutions to resolve them, so that our companies can do even better and in turn, our union members and workers can earn better wages and lead a better life.
On this note, I wish you a fruitful forum and hope that you would have a few useful takeaways that you can apply at your workplace.
Let me now invite our Guest-of-Honour, Mr Gan Kim Yong, Acting Minister for Manpower, to say a few words.
Thank you!
