TL;DR – Workers want jobs, workers need MONEY.
Do you remember which year was it when Minster Ng Chee Meng became the Secretary-General of National Trades Union Congress (NTUC)?
2018!
To be exact, he joined NTUC as Deputy Secretary-General on 23rd April 2018, and then took over the Secretary-General role from Chan Chun Sing on 22nd May 2018.
https://unscrambled.sg/2018/06/21/who-is-ng-chee-meng-ntucs-newest-secretary-general/
In other words, come May this year, he will be hitting his second-year mark in NTUC as the labour chief.
So, how did he fare during his stint as the labour chief so far?
Not bad, methinks.
In fact, he seems to really know what workers really need.
You see, in his first year speaking at the Budget 2019 Debate as the newly minted leader of the Labour Movement – after relinquishing his appointments as Minister for Education (Schools) and Second Minister for Transport, he called for the Government to continue to place workers at heart of everything that it is doing.
In that same year, he announced the launch of the Company Training Committee (CTC), an initiative by the Labour Movement to help both companies and workers to be ready for the future.
“For what?”, you ask.
For better job security of course, duh.
He believes that by providing workers with what they need for skills progression and job placement, it will improve their work prospects and give them better peace of mind in the ever-changing economy.
But would the Company Training Committee alone be sufficient?
Well…Probably not.
Perhaps that’s why during the recent Budget Debate, the NTUC Secretary-General has announced that the Labour Movement will be setting up a Job Security Council to help workers, especially the professionals, managers, and executives (PMEs), who continue to fall through the gaps.
To cut long story short, what this Job Security Council aims to do is to help place retrenched workers into new jobs quickly, by equipping workers with the right skills that are needed for the next job before they get displaced. The intent is to shorten the downtime a retrenched worker spent searching for a job without an income.
The Secretary-General explained that this move comes after learning that there is a growing concern among workers, especially amongst the mature PMEs, many of whom are above 40 years of age, who are displaced or retrenched because their skills have become redundant in the face of technological disruption.
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Workers in this group have been identified as the most vulnerable amidst disruption, as well as when in an economic downtown or restructuring. They typically face more difficulties in rejoining the workforce as they tend to spend more time looking for jobs that matched their skills and salary expectations.
“Through the Job Security Council, we want to create a win-win for companies and workers. We hope to lessen the anxiety for PMEs and workers and assure them that the Labour Movement is doing what we can to help find good jobs.”
– Ng Chee Meng, Secretary-General of NTUC.
Ah, that sounds about right!
I mean, come on, let’s be honest – if I were to get laid-off, the first thing I’ll get stressed about is the money.
Who’s going to feed my family, who’s going to continue to pay for the bills for me if I cannot find a job in time to fund me for my financial needs? I don’t need any comforting words from anybody – it’s not going to help me solve my problem.
What I’d really need is a job!
And now, with this Job Security Council, it sounds like it might be a game-changer for workers in the future!
You may watch NTUC Secretary-General Ng Chee Meng’s Budget Debate speech below:
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