By Shukry Rashid
Without the partnership with academia and institutes of higher learning to learn more about unionism and the labour workforce, the Labour Movement will just be a “firefighting department” with no sense of overall perspective. This was said by NTUC Secretary-General (SG) Chan Chun Sing during the Ong Teng Cheong Labour Leadership Institute (OTCi) Labour Research Conference on 23 November 2017 at the NTUC Centre.
OTCi showcased findings from research projects on key concerns of the Labour Movement, in collaboration the Singapore University of Social Sciences (SUSS), the Singapore Management University (SMU) and the National University of Singapore (NUS).
The key concerns include changing skills and jobs, retirement adequacy and types of challenges on employment.
SG Chan said that to represent all working people in Singapore, the Labour Movement should not be working alone. With rapid technological changes at the workplace impacting jobs and changing business models, the Labour Movement would otherwise have to regularly check its own blind spots to prevent missing out on other perspectives.
He added: “We want to partner the academia and other stakeholders because the message of how we want to tackle these changes cannot be limited to the Labour Movement. The message must be rolled out to the rest of society – and for that, we need partners.”
SG Chan hopes that through collaborations such as the OTCi conference, the Labour Movement can have greater insights into taking care of the working people amidst rapid changes for their entire working lifecycle.
Changing Skills and Jobs
The research of changing skills and jobs was done by SUSS and the Healthcare Services Employees’ Union (HSEU). From HSEU, President K Thanaletchimi said that the union has been conducting dialogue sessions with different types of workers such rank-and-file and professionals, managers and executives, including the management.
Ms Thanaletchimi also shared that there are fears of challenges in the healthcare sector such as uncertain employment outlook and future jobs. Reliance on foreign manpower has been high, but she said that to tackle this, the intake of nursing students in Singapore has increased to 20 to 30 per cent over the last few years.
Technological advancement is also another challenge, especially for mature workers in the sector. HSEU has been engaging workers to mitigate the fear of digitalisation, that technology is meant to make jobs more age-friendly and higher in value.
Retirement Adequacy
The research on retirement adequacy was done by SMU and the Singapore Industrial & Services Employees’ Union (SISEU). SISEU Advisor Lim Kuang Beng shared that good labour-management relations have enabled the union to negotiate for better terms and conditions – including re-employment policies – for its workers. To better prepare mature workers for re-employment, SISEU works with companies to give re-employment talks.
SISEU has been engaging management partners to instil progressive employment practices, to transform the nature of jobs and working environment such as good family practices and setting up jobs redesign. Together with NTUC’s U Live @ Work department, SISEU has implemented 15 projects to redesign work processes for over 300 mature workers.
SISEU has also been preparing mature workers with training and placement for job transitions if needed.
Underemployment
The topic of underemployment was presented by NUS and the National Transport Workers’ Union (NTWU). NTWU President Rosmani Juraini shared that in the public transport industry, many skills have been transformed and upgraded to enable workers to rise through the ranks.
NTWU gave feedback to SMRT and SBS Transit on salary revisions and career progression. For example, a Senior Bus Captain (BC) can look forward to progress to Chief BC and Master BC.
The public transport sector has also been plagued with the ageing workforce issue. Of the 5,000 local bus captains, 65 to 70 per cent of them are over the age of 50.
To tackle that, NTWU has been working to attract younger workers and professionalise the industry through structured courses.
