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SINGAPORE: Singapore's labour movement NTUC said it wants to examine how to enable tripartism to go beyond the national level -- a topic that unionists will discuss during their Ordinary Delegates Conference beginning on Tuesday.
Singapore's Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance Tharman Shanmugaratnam will deliver the keynote address at the opening of the Ordinary Delegates Conference. Unionists will also hear from their Secretary-General, Lim Swee Say, who will give his report at the meeting.
"A Stronger Labour Movement for a Better Singapore" -- that is the theme of the conference taking place amidst a more volatile global environment.
NTUC said one element that has brought Singapore many investments, jobs and industrial peace is tripartism.
NTUC's deputy secretary-general, Heng Chee How, said: "If we were to look at our tripartism as it is practiced, you have many interactions and problem-solving platforms at the national level.
"So at the national leaders level, that is very closely knit and mutual understanding (has been) forged through working together over many years and at the same time, you also have the NWC (National Wages Council).
"What we are actually seeing is that as the economy becomes more diverse and different industries meet different challenges, sectoral characteristics are not quite always the same as the overall picture at the macro national level. So we think there is a place for a lot more sectoral tripartism to take place.
"If you take the cleaning industry as an example, one of the challenges faced by workers in the industry would be the wages, and you want that to go up sustainably both for the workers and the companies. So you need many types of reforms."
Another challenge for the labour movement is to help low wage workers enjoy sustainable wage improvements.
NTUC vice president K Karthikeyan said: "We came out with the model called the Progressive Wage Model -- that model will help us with career progression.
"At the same time, there will be a productivity improvement which actually helps the company and of course, it motivates the worker to move to the higher platform -- you do more work and be more productive, you get a higher salary."
Mr Heng added: "This Progressive Wage Model, sometimes when people hear about it they think it's just about wages. There are four pillars. In this model, it is an improvement in skills, an improvement in productivity, improvement in career and together with that, wages.
"We have been promoting this through our different clusters and industries over the past year and a half and we have been seeing progress."
The Ordinary Delegates Conference takes place once every four years. At this conference, there will be no elections to the NTUC Central Committee.
- CNA/ac
Singapore's Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance Tharman Shanmugaratnam will deliver the keynote address at the opening of the Ordinary Delegates Conference. Unionists will also hear from their Secretary-General, Lim Swee Say, who will give his report at the meeting.
"A Stronger Labour Movement for a Better Singapore" -- that is the theme of the conference taking place amidst a more volatile global environment.
NTUC said one element that has brought Singapore many investments, jobs and industrial peace is tripartism.
NTUC's deputy secretary-general, Heng Chee How, said: "If we were to look at our tripartism as it is practiced, you have many interactions and problem-solving platforms at the national level.
"So at the national leaders level, that is very closely knit and mutual understanding (has been) forged through working together over many years and at the same time, you also have the NWC (National Wages Council).
"What we are actually seeing is that as the economy becomes more diverse and different industries meet different challenges, sectoral characteristics are not quite always the same as the overall picture at the macro national level. So we think there is a place for a lot more sectoral tripartism to take place.
"If you take the cleaning industry as an example, one of the challenges faced by workers in the industry would be the wages, and you want that to go up sustainably both for the workers and the companies. So you need many types of reforms."
Another challenge for the labour movement is to help low wage workers enjoy sustainable wage improvements.
NTUC vice president K Karthikeyan said: "We came out with the model called the Progressive Wage Model -- that model will help us with career progression.
"At the same time, there will be a productivity improvement which actually helps the company and of course, it motivates the worker to move to the higher platform -- you do more work and be more productive, you get a higher salary."
Mr Heng added: "This Progressive Wage Model, sometimes when people hear about it they think it's just about wages. There are four pillars. In this model, it is an improvement in skills, an improvement in productivity, improvement in career and together with that, wages.
"We have been promoting this through our different clusters and industries over the past year and a half and we have been seeing progress."
The Ordinary Delegates Conference takes place once every four years. At this conference, there will be no elections to the NTUC Central Committee.
- CNA/ac
