PM Lee Hsien Loong at May Day Rally 2011

NTUC Secretary-General Lim Swee Say
NTUC President John de Payva
Ministers, Business and Union Leaders
Comrades, Brothers and Sister

This year is the 50th Anniversary of NTUC.

The Labour movement has been a key partner in Singapore’s success. NTUC has taken good care of workers over the last half century — representing their interests, upgrading their skills, and helping them secure good jobs and hence better lives. I commend NTUC for its achievements and contributions.

Singapore has had a very good year. We have fully shaken off effects of global economic crisis. The economy grew 8.5% in 1Q, on target to achieve 4-6% this year. Many jobs were created, in the IRs, financial sector – StanChart, UOB (to service SE Asia), and manufacturing – Rolls-Royce (aerospace), Agilent Technologies (life sciences), Lanxess (chemicals). This has pushed unemployment down to a very low 1.9% (virtually full employment). The are more projects on the way, e.g. the opening of IM Flash (at North Shore in Sembawang) less than two weeks ago. It is a state-of-the-art wafer fab, jointly opened by Intel and Micron. It is a US$3 billion investment, creating 1,200 jobs. Singapore won the investment against strong global competition because we had the best workforce in the world, worked as one Singa­pore team led by EDB, made ourselves the most compelling location, and out-competed countries with lower costs.

Workers are enjoying better pay due to our strong economic performance. Wages and bonuses already significantly up last year. NWC just recommended higher total wage increases for workers. This is the first such recommendation in many years. Employers can see NTUC playing constructive role, recognise workers’ sacrifices during hard times, and agree they should be rewarded in good times. I am happy to see such an outcome, unique to Singapore.

This is strong testimony that our strategy to improve workers’ lives has worked. We have promoted growth — attracted high quality investments, created many new jobs, and stimulated demand for Singaporean workers. Hence we have secured higher pay for our workers.

A word of caution: we should not go overboard. If built-in wages go up too much and too fast, we may lose competitiveness, become vulnerable to a global shock, and generate a wage-price spiral that feeds inflation. These will hurt our economy and further raise cost of living. Hence, even as NWC calls for sharing of more gains with workers, it also calls for keeping our wages flexible and responsive.

We will also continue pursuing productivity improvements, especially in services and construction sectors.

The Government making a major effort to help existing workers upgrade. The National Productivity and Continuing Education Council (NPCEC) focused on this, upgrading jobs and workers’ skills, sector-by-sector, Not just rank-and-file workers, but PMETs too. The Government will spend $2.5 bn on Continuing Education and Training (CET) over next 5 years.

We are also preparing our future workers well, e.g. ITE College West, which opened just two weeks ago. It is the second campus after ITE College East five years ago; ITE College Central will be completed in 2013. It has excellent facilities, programmes and staff, producing outstanding technical students. The students are trained with “thinking hands”, given solid grounding and relevant skills to do good jobs, or go on to polytechnic. They are much sought after by employers. We are proud of our ITEs. There is hardly any other country with anything similar or comparable. It shows our commitment to give the best education to all our students, across the board.

Ensuring good jobs – for present and future workers – is the first responsibility of any government. This is what the PAP has delivered, and will continue to deliver. This is what voters must ask any political party seeking their support – how will they create growth and jobs for Singaporeans?

We should hold to our successful formula that has provided good jobs and better pay over a long term — invest in our people and keep Singapore the best place for business. Meanwhile, we must deal with short term issues.

E.g. cost of living

The problem this year, mainly for food and energy, is caused by external events — upheavals in Middle East pushing up oil prices and poor harvests in farming countries pushing up food prices. People understandably worried. There is public upset all over Asia, forcing governments to take action, e.g. China – food suppliers ordered to keep prices stable; in India – banned onion exports, and contemplating rice export ban; in Indonesia – the President asked households to plant their own food (e.g. chillies) and eat less rice (and more sweet potatoes). Singapore faces a different situation – we import all our food and energy. What can we do to tackle problem?

Our best long-term response is to ensure workers have jobs and steady increase in real wages, but we are also implementing many shorter term measures.

First, by keeping the Singapore dollar strong. When the economy is strong, confidence in Singa­pore high, so we are able to maintain a strong Singapore dollar. The Singapore dollar has been appreciating. A year ago US$1 was worth about S$1.40. Today it is close to S$1.22, i.e. about 15% increase in value against the US dollar. This has preserved the purchasing power of your pay, and CPF savings. If our exchange rate had stayed at S$1.40, local prices would have gone up much more

Second, by targeting help in specific areas and to groups who need it. MOF has sent out letters explaining the various help in the “Grow & Share” package, and also listed them in flyers in ST and ZB [flyer]. There are individual items to meet specific problems directly – U-Save for utilities bills, pre-school subsidies for those with young children, Medisave top-ups for older citizens — up to $4,000 per household — more than rise in cost of living for most families. Singaporeans would have already received some of the benefits, especially Growth Dividends over last few days; the others are on the way. Please do not spend them immediately, but keep them to help meet the higher costs you will encounter during this year.

I know that despite the Grow & Share package, Singa­poreans still worried about cost of living. The Govern­ment will continue to focus on this, and the ministers and I are personally focussed too — to track what is happening elsewhere which can impact our prices, to find ways to buffer ourselves, and to manage our domestic costs, especially housing. HDB prices — predicament of the sandwich group, which worries that if they do not get a BTO flat soon, their incomes may rise beyond the $8,000 ceiling.

Beyond helping with cost of living, we are making special efforts to help low income workers. Workfare to top up wages, especially for older workers. Workfare Special Bonus – another 50% increase in payout this year. This means: a worker earning $1,000 a month aged 35-44 gets $130 more; if he is 60 years and above, he gets $350 more. This is fully funded by the Government, so no there is burden on employers. This is available to the self-employed too. But also need to upgrade their skills and productivity – most effective and sustainable approach

NTUC’s e2i is playing key role. They trained 16,000 rank-and-file workers and 7,000 PMETs last year. Very often full solutions needed – e2i works with employers to implement new systems and train workers to operate them, e.g. Hotel Ibis in Novena worked with e2i on five projects to improve productivity — capture F&B orders electronically, and sync with room accounts, thus reducing errors and waiting time for guests, automate payroll and staff rostering, and cross-train staff to do work in different departments. The result – savings to company, and local staff get 13% wage increase.

Also measures to help older workers

The Government helping older workers to get and stay in jobs. We passed reemployment legislation — under re-employment law, most will be able to work till 65. If a worker cannot do the same job, the employer has to help him find an alternative suitable job. We are giving out a Special Employment Credit to companies with Singapore workers aged 55 and above. We are encouraging companies to adapt jobs, e.g. to use new equipment that helps older workers do the work efficiently and quickly. Another example is Home-Fix, a DIY store. This is physically demanding for older staff to do price-tagging. So Home-Fix tapped on ADVANTAGE! funding to develop electronic price tagging system, and also introduced “Best Gold Collar Award” to recognise outstanding mature employees.

There have been good results nationwide. Employment rate of residents aged 55 – 64 stayed stable through downturn, then rose when economy recovered last year. Now about six in ten residents aged 55 – 64 are employed. The unionised sector taking lead – more than 90% of companies have adopted re-employment, and more than 10,000 workers over 62 have been re-employed.

I am confident that we can deal with these and other issues. The tripartite partnership a key factor and advantage, and one major reason why we emerged so rapidly and strongly from the global crisis. Unions have made an invaluable contribution to our tripartism. Singa­pore’s future depends on dynamic, forward looking unions, who will continue improving workers’ lives

NTUC has to strengthen and renew itself, both in Central Committee and in member unions. It must train new leaders who can build on what past labour leaders have achieved, who are committed to tripartism, able to work with employers to help companies and workers become more productive and do better, and able to rally workers to tackle the challenges of the future.

NTUC has come up with two key initiatives to: build up a three generation (3G) membership base of 1 million; develop future generation of leaders through a 3F framework — flow-in new leaders, flow-up promising leaders, flow-on existing leaders, and Hence facilitate self renewal of labour leadership at all levels. We are starting a NTUC50 Development Fund to support the two programmes – 3G and 3F, with the target to raise $50 million.

The Government will help, We will provide 3-to-1 matching. So the Labour Movement just needs to raise $12.5 million, and the Government will give a grant of $37.5 million, This is a vital investment to keep NTUC relevant and effective, and also a symbol of the Government’s full support for the union movement and Singapore workers.

A significant number of MPs are from the labour movement. They make important contributions — looked after workers’ interests, given workers a strong voice in national policies, and ensured that policies are pro-workers and pro-Singapore. The current slate includes a good number of NTUC candidates — Mr Ong Ye Kung and Mr Ang Hin Kee from e2i, four more from IR (Mr Patrick Tay, Mr Zainal Sapari) and Young NTUC (Mr Desmond Choo and Mr Alex Yam). They will make good MPs and office holders, and we hope to bring in more in future GEs.

I congratulate NTUC on its 50th Anniversary. NTUC will continue to have an important role in the next 50 years. It will be a different world, full of challenges but also opportunities. The future can be bright for us, if we work hard together. Let us cooperate to strive for better jobs, better pay and better lives for our workers, the people of Singapore.

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