Labour chief says legislation to stop retrenchments is not the solution
By S Ramesh, Channel NewsAsia | Posted: 10 December 2008 1819 hrs

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SINGAPORE : There have been calls to give Singapore's labour movement more teeth and power to stop retrenchments, but labour chief Lim Swee Say believes that legislation is not the solution.

Speaking in an interview on Channel NewsAsia's "Insight" programme, he said the best way to deal with the current economic downturn is to strengthen the spirit of tripartism.

Small and medium enterprise Lian Ying Industries Engineering has been in the precision engineering business for nearly 30 years.

It has never retrenched any worker. In fact, its workers are regularly sent for training.

Kok Maw Sheng, managing director, Lian Ying Industries Engineering, said: "It is important to improve our workers skills, education as well as company image. We want to show our customers that our workers are professionally trained and certified."

A key programme that will help achieve higher training skills is the S$600 million Skills Programme for Upgrading and Resilience (SPUR).

The Workforce Development Agency (WDA) said it is encouraged by Singaporeans' response to calls to raise their skills through training during the economic downturn.

Since SPUR was announced, it has received close to 500 enquiries from both companies and workers about the programme.

WDA's website also saw a 40 per cent increase in number of hits or approximately 200,000 hits on November 21 - the day SPUR was announced.

In addition, WDA's partners such as NTUC, SNEF and the Community Development Councils have also received enquiries.

Companies and workers want to know the types of skills training programmes available under SPUR at Continuing Education and Training centres islandwide, and how they can tap on the programme.

And Singapore's labour movement believes that for SPUR to be effective, employers must adopt the mindset of turning excess manpower into investments.

Lim Swee Say, Secretary-General, NTUC, said: "Our slogan is 'upturn the downturn'. In other words, we believe that while everybody is focused on the downside of the downturn, we as the labour movement, look at the upside of the downturn, because we believe that the downturn presents the same challenge to every companies, to every economy in this world, yet at the same time it will draw different responses.

"In the case of Singapore, the partnership, our ability to work together as government, as employers, as labour movement, is our biggest strength and unique capability."

The labour movement added that it will work with companies to restructure their operations.

Mr Lim said: "Our concern is that if every organisation takes retrenchment too lightly (and) as the first resort, as the first action, takes it as a way to cut costs...this could lead to massive retrenchment, and this could lead to a very rapid rise in unemployment. I think that is our concern, because we are already seeing that."

Mr Lim feels such situations can be avoided with effective tripartism.

He elaborated: "If tripartism can be achieved through legislation, every country by today will have the law in place, every country will have a competitive, effective tripartism, then Singapore will be no different from any other country. But tripartism cannot be achieved through legislation alone; care and trust cannot be achieved through legislation.

"And as a result, Singapore - after all these years of concerted effort by the government, by the labour movement, by the employers - has created this unique brand of tripartism in Singapore, something that functions very well. So in good times, tripartism must be effective; in bad times, tripartism must be even more effective.

"So yes, as we go through this downturn, there will be tensions, disagreements (and) friction, but we should never look for an easy way out, because any easy way out could turn into confrontation, so that is why on the part of the labour movement, we are very realistic.

"We continue to work on the ground, to engage with the management, workers (and) the government, because at the end of the day, the only way that we can ensure that our tripartism in Singapore will remain our unique strength...(is) only through communication, consensus (and) the continuous process of trust and building." - AFP/ms

Viewers can catch Lim Swee Say's interview on Insight on Thursday at 8.30pm on Channel NewsAsia.