PM Lee Hsien Loong at the Union of Power and Gas Employees (UPAGE) 20th Anniversary Dinner

Brother Tay Seng Chye, President of UPAGE
Brother Nachiappan, General Secretary of UPAGE
Brothers and Sisters

I am delighted to be here this evening to join you for UPAGE 20th Anniversary Dinner. Brother Nachi mentioned that I attended UPAGE’s 10th Anniversary Dinner. I remember it was at Neptune. Now, it does not exist anymore. But actually that was not the beginning of my association with UPAGE. I associated with UPAGE before you were UPAGE – when you were the PUB Union and when I was at the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI). Then, I was intimately involved at MTI working with PUB converting into SingPower, corporatising SingPower, UPAGE being formed. So, I have attended several of your dinners and met your leaders many times over the years. I was involved in the restructuring of the power industry, which has taken the last 20 years and I have tracked developments in the sector very closely because it is a very major change and I want to make sure that the people were looked after. So even when I gave up the MTI appointment in 1992, I kept track of this. And, whoever was the MTI Minister, I was breathing down his neck to make sure that this important aspect of the job was seen to, to make sure that the people were taken care of as we restructure. Today, I am very glad to see many familiar faces and to catch up with many old friends.

You are in a very important industry. I think you call it the Oil, Petrochemical, Energy and Chemical (OPEC) cluster. We are not so successful with OPEC like the Saudi Arabians but the Singapore OPEC cluster is the union of the oil, petroleum, energy and chemical sector. It is important to us because energy is the lifeblood of our economy. Without electricity, without reliable power supply, I think Singapore will be very different. You cannot have a modern Singapore. For us, that is a big challenge, because we are a small place, with no natural energy resources – no oil, no gas, no hydro, no geothermal – even solar you have got to put panels on every HDB rooftop and it is still not enough. But we have to generate a reliable power supply for the whole country all the time. Relying on imports of fuel oil, piped natural gas, now liquefied natural gas, we are vulnerable to supply risks, fluctuations in the global economy or sometimes when your suppliers let us down, vulnerable to prices going down, going up, and affecting us straightaway.

But over the years, we have adapted ourselves. We have diversified our energy sources. Now we have industry which is more resilient, more reliable and more secure. So much so that when once in a while somebody in Singapore has a power breakdown for one and a half hours, you are on the front page of the newspapers. But do not let it happen too often.

One very important thing we did to get here was to restructure the energy sector. It started with coporatising PUB’s electricity and gas departments which became SingPower. SingPower was one company where all the power and gas departments "bao ka liao" inside there. We nearly floated SingPower like that. But fortunately we took advice, we paused and we decided we needed to improve the structure. We made changes. We realised we did not have a good position yet. We made further changes and it took 20 years of progressive changes. Opening up and restructuring the industry, hiving off the generation companies (GenCos), opening up the generation and retail markets to commercial players, splitting off the power grid, selling off GenCos one by one after we had the whole structure put in place. It took us 20 years but that result is today’s industry and today’s supply – high quality, reliable and tip top.

Who has benefitted? Singaporeans have befitted. The economy has benefitted. The workers have benefitted because your wages are high, your productivity is higher and the industry has expanded. There are actually more jobs in the industry today than when we first started.

But it has not been easy coming here because every round of restructuring is unsettling and painful. Sometimes there were retrenchments, changes to pay structures and certainly many changes to the way we worked, changes in which kind of generators we keep – the steam ones, the fuel oil ones, now we have the cogen ones, changes in the way the market worked and in the way the pay structures were developed. But we have made the journey successfully and we could only do that because we had the full cooperation, confidence and trust of UPAGE.

UPAGE has been fully committed to the national interest – working tirelessly with the government and the management, to prepare workers for the change, to foster mutual cooperation, trust and respect. Most critically, UPAGE advanced the interests of workers, helped workers to move up, and so workers trusted UPAGE to defend their interests. I just asked Brother Nachi what is your union membership rate in the industry and he says 95 percent. I think it must be one of the highest in any industry in Singapore and it shows how much confidence people have. It shows what a good job UPAGE has done and it also reminds UPAGE to continue to work hard. But because you have done it, wages have gone up for technical workers, workers have been upgraded, they are doing higher skilled jobs and lives have improved. Even when there were retrenchment exercises, they save as many jobs as possible and help the affected workers to find new jobs.

I would like to pay tribute and express my profound thanks to the leaders and founding members and even the current members of UPAGE. Starting with the late brother Nithiah Nandan, who travelled with us through the many twists and turns of restructuring over many years, from the beginning until he passed away about eight years ago. He worked with us, maintained trust, and made sure that workers were taken care of and treated fairly. When retrenchments were unavoidable, he convinced himself that they were really unavoidable and then fought for the workers so that the number of workers affected would be minimised. And then he went out, and he was courageous to sell the package to workers. When circumstances changed, we were planning to list SingPower, there was going to be a bonus upon listing because you will get shares, the listing had to be postponed. Actually, we have postponed it now - 15 years, but it was necessary to be postponed. He pushed for the workers to be given something in fairness because this was a change of plan and he lobbied it personally. I think Brother Boon Heng was organising a gathering and he arranged for Nithi to sit in a chair behind me. So, instead of listening to the person onstage, I was chatting to Nithi on what to do with this problem. We solved this problem and we worked out a package. I think it was fair and the union accepted it, the workers accepted it and our trust was strengthened. Nithi kept this up and fought for workers right to the very end. He was ill, he was dying and he knew. But he continued to make sure that his job was done. Until a few days before he passed away, he ensured that collective agreements were completed and signed with the GenCos that were going to be sold. He made sure that the workers in those GenCos were taken care of. I think he negotiated with Kim Yin who was then in Temasek and he settled that. After that, he said, done, I can go in peace. So I am very honoured that his wife, Vimala is here with us today. Thank you.

I would also like to mention Brother Rahman Mahbob, the first President of UPAGE, who is also here today. From being a shop steward in the City Council Staff Union - that means pre-1959, 60 years ago, he rose to become President of UPAGE, rallied workers to support the restructuring. I think he lived the progress of Singapore in his own life. So, when he spoke at the NTUC Tribute event for Mr Lee Kuan Yew, he spoke from his heart. Thank you Brother Rahman.

I would like to mention Brother Nachi of course, who is General-Secretary and had just spoken tonight. Brother Nithi mentored him and he has been a unionist for more than 30 years. He has carried on the baton and he has taken the union further forward. I believe he is celebrating his birthday on 28 Aug and will continue on to be Emeritus General-Secretary. We wish him all the best and look forward to his wise counsel and advice which will be very much sought after. There are many more but I do not think I can mention all of them. So, I would like to thank all of them especially the ones in the pioneer generation. But I would say even those not quite in the pioneer generation, if you have fought the good fight and worked with us, thank you very much for your service and your support. We do not take your efforts and your contributions for granted. We know it is important because without you, we would not be here today. It is just not possible and it is not just the power industry not being here today - but Singapore would not be here today; but Singapore is not going to be here tomorrow. We are going to be in a different place tomorrow.

The world is changing and we are changing. The power industry is changing. New players have entered the power industry. The global market for oil and gas is not so certain. It is volatile. You enter into a contract, take or pay. You do not know when the moment comes whether you want to take and whether you will regret having to pay. There will be challenges for all of us – for the companies, for the workers and their families too and for the Government. How do we shepherd all of us safely through in such an unstable environment? But I think if we work together – employers, workers and Government, tripartism – we will pull through. Every year, May Day, union functions, employer functions, I sing this one song about tripartism and NTUC solidarity forever because that is the way we can pull through as we have done so in the past, and so we must in the future.

Today, I think we must count our blessings. But at the same time understand what our happy situation depends on and not forget the investments which we have made over so many years in order to get here. The investments in trust, in developing relationships, in sharing information, in being able to solve problems together, speaking frankly but taking a long term perspective – long term perspective of your worker’s interest, not pushing for maximum bonuses every year, long term perspective of the company’s interest, not trying to squeeze every drop of blood out of your workers – so that you have the trust there, up and down, thick and thin, we are in this together, tomorrow we will still be working together. You have to take a long term view. Not just the unions but the companies too. When you talk about cost-cutting, when you talk about profit maximisation, when you talk about returns to shareholders and efficiency, yes all these are important but understand that there is an impact on workers and there is a long term relationship with the workers. They are not just employees but also stakeholders. We may be having a thin year today but we have had fat years in the past. We have gone through them. And I think we have built a relationship which must see us through thin years as well.

The government is on the side of the workers. We have always been. We have to be fair to companies because the companies enable the workers to be productive, to generate the productivity, the wealth and to afford a good living for all of us. But remember that this is a long term relationship, not a one off quick arrangement. Build on it, so that we can manage the challenges. I think your President, Brother Seng Chye, mentioned some of them just now. They know how to put in such a nice way that you really cannot disagree even though you wish it were different. I do not have to make more arguments on his behalf and I can leave it to him.

But I think I should put on record the government’s position that we are very grateful for the unions and your contributions these 20 something years, UPAGE, and we look forward to your contributions for over more than 20 something years to come. The industry will change. But I think the need to have union which is strong, which is responsible, which is forward-looking, which cares for its members and works with the government and the employers, and have good standing; I think that is not going to change. We must not allow that to change.

I wish you all a very happy 20th anniversary. I wish all the Muslim members and friends present here Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri and I look forward to being invited many more times in future – 30th, 40th and 50th anniversaries . Thank you!

Explore related topics

• Jobs and productivity