SINGAPORE — The Labour Movement today (Oct 30) announced plans to increase salaries for over 100,000 low-wage workers beginning next year through its progressive wage model.

The model revolves around launching accreditation schemes tailored for each sector, and will mark out firms which have adopted it. The model aims to have percentage increases for the pay of low-earners to be higher than percentage rises in national median wage over time.

The Labour Movement intends to couple this strategy with quantitative guidelines issued by the National Wages Council, emphasising the need to elevate wages for low-earners.

The model aims to encourage upgrading of skills to allow productivity and wages to increase with higher-quality jobs, according to the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC).

The Labour Movement will be forming an expert group to assist its affiliates and unionised firms on the adoption of the progressive wage model.

For professionals, managers and executives (PMEs), two new centres will be set up by year-end as new channels to offer assistance in finding jobs and other employment issues. The centres will be located at the Devan Nair Institute for Employment and Employability in Jurong and at the NTUC Centre at One Marina Boulevard.

The Labour Movement added that this is crucial to support Singapore’s economic restructuring efforts.

For PMEs, the aim is to bring unionisation rates from 20 to 25 per cent. For this, NTUC will approach more professional bodies to form partnerships in tackling job placement, progression and protection issues faced by white-collar workers.

A review of the Industrial Relations Act also aims to broaden the scope of union representation for PMEs.

The Act currently restricts rank-and-file unions from representing managers and executives on a collective basis.

Mr Patrick Tay, director of the PME Unit at NTUC, said: “The impending changes to the Industrial Relations Act to allow rank-and-file unions to represent collectively PMEs — so in a way, the systems and structures and the laws are going to be in place. So, it will then serve as impetus for our unions to do outreach to bring in more members.”

The Labour Movement believes that strong tripartism — where employers, the government and unions cooperate — is essential to the progressive wage model’s success.

Mr Lim Swee Say, secretary general of NTUC, said: “The best thing that the workers can do for — to look after businesses, is to upgrade their skill, upgrade their productivity and spur up the pace of innovation.

“On the part of the businesses, the best thing they can do for the workers — will be in terms of give them the better job prospects, career upgrading, as well as wage improvement.” CHANNEL NEWSASIA