In 2012, the NTUC introduced the Progressive Wage Model (PWM) to enable workers to achieve sustainable wage increases as they acquire better skills and higher productivity. The PWM augmented earlier NTUC initiatives like the Skills Redevelopment and the Job Re-creation Programmes.

In June 2012, the NTUC introduced the Progressive Wage Model to enable workers to achieve sustainable wage increases through the acquisition of better skills and higher productivity. This wage model comprised four ladders:

skills
productivity improvement;
career paths; and
wages

During NTUC Secretary-General Lim Swee Say’s tenure, seven unionised clusters worked with their respective tripartite partners to map out PWMs for their respective industries. They were:

Hospitality and Consumer Business (Hotel, Retail and Food Services sectors)
Building and Facility Management (Cleaning, Security and Landscape sectors)
Transport and Logistics
Healthcare
Education
Marine Engineering
Oil, Petroleum, Energy and Chemical

Lim pointed out that Singapore is able to adopt this method of sustainable wage increases through re-skilling and upgrading of workers because of strong tripartite collaboration and a highly motivated workforce.

The Progressive Wage Model is today mandatory in the cleaning, security, landscape and lift maintenance sectors.

An All-Inclusive NTUC

As an inclusive Labour Movement, the NTUC takes care of all workers through its network of affiliated unions and associations, professional guilds and communities, small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) bosses and human resource (HR) personnel; and embraces freelancers, self-employed, migrant and foreign domestic workers.

In many other parts of the world, trade union membership is shrinking. This is partly due to the nature of work and employment in the 21st century, shrinking the pool of organisable labour. The situation is different in Singapore because the NTUC has adopted a much more inclusive approach to the organisation of labour. As NTUC Secretary-General Chan Chun Sing remarked, it is an ‘Unusual Labour Movement’. He sums up the ‘unusualness’ as follows:

“There are 3 ‘U’s in the word ‘unusual’. Our Labour Movement aims to be unusual in at least three ways – constantly reinventing ourselves to take care of ALL workers and not just some;

constantly making sure that our workers remain competitive and enjoy a growing pie rather than fight over a shrinking pie; and continuing to grow from strength to strength to buck the worldwide trend of declining numbers and relevance for unions.”

To extend the Labour Movement beyond the NTUC’s affiliated unions and associations, it developed U Network, an all-inclusive labour force network comprising:

Affiliated unions and associations: The core of the Labour Movement

To help working professionals in their careers through networking opportunities and developing professional standards for their respective industries.

To address critical issues and challenges faced by SMEs and help them adopt progressive HR practices to ultimately benefit SME workers.

To represent the growing pool of gig economy workers in Singapore, and to strengthen their income security, skills mastery and collective interests.

To safeguard the interests and welfare of migrant workers and domestic workers in Singapore.

Under Secretary-General Chan’s leadership, the Labour Movement focused on being relevant and representative of workers in Singapore. It aimed to be representative through the U network and relevant through its U Career Network (a structure set up to help workers achieve better jobs and better wages), and its social enterprises.

Future Proofing the Workforce – Worker 4.0

As Singapore’s economy undergoes industry transformations, NTUC is working with tripartite partners to set up Company Training Committees, where unions work closely with companies to ensure that workers have relevant skills for future jobs, so that they can continue to have better wages, welfare and work prospects.

As Singapore readies itself for Industry 4.0, NTUC ensures that workers keep pace with the transformation in the industries they work in. NTUC Secretary-General Ng Chee Meng explained: ‘For Industry 4.0 to be actualised, we need our workers to transform in parallel with their companies and industries because there can be no Industry 4.0 without the worker.’ This calls for the creation of the ‘Worker 4.0’ concept, which describes a worker with adaptive skills (ability to navigate and influence change and solve complex problems); technology skills (knowledge and mastery of digital systems and programmes); and technical skills (job-specific knowledge and skills).

This will be realised through Company Training Committees (CTCs) to be set up within companies. As Secretary-General Ng explained at the NTUC May Day Rally 2019: “The CTCs, in short, will cover three things — accelerate acceptance of technology, sometimes even for the businesses and definitely for the workers; adoption of technology to solve problems, so that we can also accelerate the actualisation of the transformation — bringing in new technologies to create better businesses and of course, bring benefits to our workers.” With this, our workers can continue to have better wages, welfare and work prospects.

NTUC aims to establish CTCs in 1,000 companies across all six Industry Transformation Map groups, benefitting some 330,000 workers, over the next three years.