NTUC chief urges S'poreans to be prepared to live with higher fuel, food prices

Channel NewsAsia 1 Jan 08;

SINGAPORE : Coping with higher food prices is a global phenomenon, and NTUC Chief Lim Swee Say has called on Singaporeans to be prepared for this new reality.

The best way to meet this challenge is for Singapore to focus on economic development, and according to Mr Lim, this is the most sustainable strategy.

"Because the day we lose our economic competitiveness, then the problem is no longer about inflation. The problem is much worse than that because there will be no jobs. There will be a softening of the labour market and there will be lower pay," said the NTUC Secretary-General. He was speaking to reporters after opening the new office for the Union of Security Employees.

Mr Lim continued: "If you look at Asia today, for example, a few countries are going through elections. Some have just finished their elections. And what do they talk about? They are talking about refocusing on economic development.

"Korea has a new president. What is his economic agenda? In Taiwan, they are going through an election now. What is the agenda? It's economic agenda in relation to the political agenda. In Thailand, why are voters voting the way they did? Because after two years of (economic) softening, they are looking for economic growth again.

That is why Singapore's strategy is simple - job creation to ensure that the labour market remains tight. This will then ensure that workers can enjoy higher salaries and better bonuses.

At the same time, Mr Lim said the government recognises that the impact will be greater on lower wage workers.

That is why the Workface Income Supplement Scheme has been introduced to help those who are not working now to come back to work.

Said Mr Lim: "Workers who are not working today, who are not on the CPF scheme, the contract workers and blue-collar workers, we have to help them to get on the CPF scheme. If they are working but they are not on the CPF scheme, again they will not be able to benefit from this Workfare Income Supplement... We are going to step up our caring and sharing, through our cooperatives and through our various union activities, so that we can help them with this rising cost of living.

"There's no running away from higher energy costs, higher food prices because this is a global phenomenon. But what we can do in Singapore is to make sure our workers are able cope with this better that any other workers in any other countries.

"This means, give them good jobs, good skills, a good living environment and good working environment. At the same time, with policy innovation such as the Workfare Income Supplement Scheme through our social enterprises, we help them to stretch their dollar, so that hopefully everybody can cope with this situation much better than workers elsewhere.

And this will be one of the key focus of the labour movement in its 2008 workplan, with special attention on older workers and women.

"Our employment rate for women today is relatively low to many OECD countries; there is still a lot of scope for us to do a lot more. And we believe that more and more women will want to come back to work as we go through the whole process of longer life expectancy and so on," said the NTUC Secretary-General.

Mr Lim added that the NTUC will also help contract workers enhance their employment conditions, help low wage workers upgrade their skills, as well as professionals, managers, executives and technicians (PMETs) who are affected by the economic restructuring to go through professional conversion. - CNA /ls