As much as I want to begin singing praises to our government on
their efforts to deal with current employment issues, I am also
compelled to ask; WHY, couldn't they have 'pre-empted' or
'anticipated' such issues a decade ago than to wait until such
issues arise, and then start "fire-fighting"..??
Well scholars all of them aren't they??
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Labour movement to step up efforts to tackle widening
income gap
By Wong Siew Ying, Channel NewsAsia | Posted: 26 January 2007 2349
hrs
SINGAPORE : The labour movement will step up efforts to tackle the
main challenges facing the workforce, such as the widening income
gap, ageing population and also to raise the employment rate.
Announcing NTUC's comprehensive plan for the year, its Secretary
General Lim Swee Say says this will include a new idea called
pre-emptive redeployment aimed at keeping retrenchments down.
One focus of the NTUC this year is to push for more job
security.
It wants to work more closely with companies to identify workers
who could be retrenched as a result of restructuring.
These workers can then be re-trained and redeployed to other jobs
within the same organisation, before they get laid off.
"This way, companies can avoid having to retrench workers and at
the same time, on the part of the workers, they can maintain their
seniority with the company. And as we retrain him for the new job,
we hope this will be a career upgrading for them," says NTUC's
Secretary General Lim Swee Say
NTUC will also do more to speed up career development and improve
the pay scale for low wage earners, by expanding the scope of its
Job Re-creation Programme (JRP).
Last year, some 12,000 workers benefited from the scheme.
And NTUC hopes to tap on the $50 million JRP Fund to re-train
15,000 people this year.
Separately, it is also planning to train more employees from small
and medium-sized companies.
"For workers who are union members, WDA allows NTUC to function as
if we are their employers. In other words, if the workers'
employers do not send their workers for training, due to a lack of
time, money or having no knowledge of the kinds of training needed,
then we can actually sponsor them for training, if these workers
are union members," says Mr Lim
On older workers, Mr Lim says re-employment is the way to go rather
than raising the official retirement age - an observation he made
after studying Japan's model.
This will allow healthy and productive retirees to continuing
working.
Admittedly, a lot of groundwork needs to be done but Mr Lim hopes
to reach out to 70 percent of unionised companies in five
years.
NTUC will also set up a unit to look after the interests of
contract workers and to ensure that they are not exploited.
Through this, it hopes to secure some basic benefits for them, such
as CPF contribution, annual leave, training and medical
benefits.
With more jobs coming on stream in the years ahead, NTUC is also
encouraging executives to pursue careers in new growth
sectors.
Touching on Workfare Programme, Mr Lim says he supports the idea of
tying Medisave and CPF with the scheme, but warns against having
too many criteria so as to help more low income workers. - CNA
/ls
