SINGAPORE — To reduce the anxiety felt by workers about losing their jobs amid economic uncertainties, the labour movement will start a job security taskforce to look into protecting workers at the pre-retrenchment stage, Mr Ng Chee Meng said.

The secretary-general of the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) said that such a taskforce could propose solutions to reduce the window between retrenchment and job placements.

By working with employers pre-emptively to help workers, it would allow NTUC’s protection model to go “upstream” and “create a win-win (outcome) not just for the workers, who will have less to worry about and better job placements, but also companies looking at reducing costs of hiring and perhaps also retrenchment costs", Mr Ng added.

The suggestion was one of several ideas mooted on Tuesday (Oct 15) at the NTUC National Delegates Conference 2019 held at Orchid Country Club, where members discussed issues facing the labour movement and also elected a new central committee. 

A total of 21 committee members were elected into the position by a secret ballot of more than 400 delegates from its 59 unions. Their term will last four years.

Ms Mary Liew was re-elected as the president while Mr Ng, who is also a Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office, was also re-elected as secretary-general.

The conference was held against the backdrop of falling union memberships around the world, with several developed countries reporting that they have lost nearly half their union members in the last three decades. 

The United States, which had a unionisation rate of 35 per cent of the workforce in the 1950s, now has about 10 per cent. In Malaysia, the rate is at 7 per cent.

In Singapore, NTUC has around 950,000 members, or around 30 per cent of the workforce. Although this number has grown over the years, Mr Ng said that the growth has tapered.

At a press conference on Wednesday after the election, Mr Ng said that NTUC will set a target of 1.5 million members by 2030, or an "aspirational target" as early as 2025.

Mr Ng said earlier in his speech: “So many unions around the world are losing their relevance. There are people who regard unions as a destructive force. The most damaging thing is that there are unions that are losing mindshare, especially in the young today.”

On Tuesday, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said at the conference that the relationship between the ruling People’s Action Party government and the labour movement has given workers a stake in society and that populist movements have appeared in countries that do not enjoy such a relationship, such as in Hong Kong.

Mr Ng said that the challenges facing the unions today include the need to protect Singapore’s ageing workforce better while increasing the labour movement’s mindshare with the youth entering the workforce. 

Worker profiles have also changed: NTUC used to represent a majority (70 per cent) of rank-and-file workers and a minority (30 per cent) of professionals, managers and executives (PMEs), but today the ratio is around half. Mr Ng said that by 2030, a majority of members will be PMEs (70 per cent).

Mr Ng made several other suggestions on how NTUC can remain revelant. These were discussed at the conference and received a strong consensus, he said. 

Besides the taskforce, Mr Ng also said that NTUC could innovate its membership model to give out memberships to entire families, which would allow family members to also benefit from the services NTUC provides — childcare services by My First Skool, ageing assistance by NTUC Health, affordable food from Foodfare or Kopitiam, and groceries from FairPrice.

He mooted the idea of new union structures, such as the Supply Chain Employees' Union, which represents workers in the industry regardless of whether they are PMEs or rank-and-file workers. 

Unions could also tap technology for its various purposes to serve its members, such as an artificial intelligence that could collate information about union members and push training suggestions to them based on their skill levels and work experiences, Mr Ng said.

There is also the possibility of having digital unions to contemplate brick-and-mortar unions, he added. 

WHAT UNION LEADERS SAY 

Union leaders told TODAY that they were supportive of the suggestions to keep NTUC relevant to today’s workforce, with some noting that while memberships continue to rise, they were rising at a slower pace.

Ms Wong Lee Pheng, vice-predicent of the United Workers of Electronics & Electrical Industries, said that her union represents 65,000 members in industries that have been facing upheavals and retrenchments, in part due to the protracted trade war between the United States and China.

She said that retrenched workers need more support to tide them through rough and anxious periods.

Mr Suzairi Ambri, vice-president of the Union of Power and Gas Employees, said that there is a perception that unions represent just the rank-and-file workers despite the passage of amendments to the Employment Act last year which extended protections to higher-paid workers, including PMEs.

While his union, which has 5,500 members, has grown over the years, he said that more needs to be done to reach out to younger workers to help them realise the importance of union representation.

“When we negotiate salary scales for one company, it benefits everyone in that company. Even though the unionisation rate is 30 per cent today, that 30 per cent will have to collectively bargain for the good of the other 70 per cent as well.

“So this is the positive domino effect of unions — it is about collective representation and I hope we can do more to convince younger people about the importance of the unions,” he said.

Young NTUC vice-chairperson of service sector Timothy Lim, 35, said that younger workers may be reluctant to join the unions in their respective fields because of a fear of speaking out or that they may be seen as adversaries of the company and are marked down for their membership.

Asked whether unionists are penalised by their companies for membership, Mr Lim said that it depends on the company. 

“The bottom line is that we are trying to work for everybody’s rights. It is not like the old days where you bang table and things (happen). Nowadays, it is about collective bargaining and negotiating with management to get a win-win situation for both sides,” he said.