NTUC elects first woman president

By Saifulbahri Ismail, Channel NewsAsia, 8 Dec 2011

The National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) has elected Diana Chia Siew Fui as the new president of its top decision-making body, the Central Committee.

She is the first woman to lead the labour movement as president.

Nearly 400 delegates cast their votes during the election to choose the new team for the NTUC Central Committee.

Twenty-one members were elected to the committee, almost half of them are new faces.

The election was held at the end of the National Delegates' Conference on Thursday.

The exercise is seen as a significant step in leadership renewal for the NTUC.



The NTUC also conferred the President Emeritus title on its immediate former president, Mr John De Payva.

The decision was taken at the first meeting of the newly-elected Central Committee.

The NTUC added that given Mr De Payva's long and extensive experience in the international labour movement, he would continue to be a valuable contributor to NTUC's active presence in the international arena. 

Mr Lim Swee Say has been re-elected as NTUC Secretary-General while Ms Nora Kang, Mr K Karthikeyan and Mr Edwin Lye have been elected vice-presidents. 

Ms Chia is from the Healthcare Services Employees Union. The 55-year-old veteran unionist said she has a good team in the Central Committee to work with.

She said: "We've got them in a span of ages, so that also helps in leadership development. So, if you're talking about building the next team up, we really have a strong mandate from this election itself to build up this team to give members equal exposure, and some maybe more so that we can expand their strengths and their contributions."

The new Central Committee's work will be guided by the Labour Movement 2015 vision which has been endorsed by the delegates at the end of their conference.

The committee will seek to reach out to more professionals, managers and executives (PMEs).

It also wants to build on its three-flow system to induct, nurture and renew union leadership.

In addition, the labour movement will work towards realising real wage increase in a more broad-based manner.

The NTUC also wants to build a Singapore core in the various sectors of the economy, where Singaporean workers continue to become an essential part of the economic growth.

To realise this vision, the NTUC says the push for tripartism has to be more pervasive.

NTUC Secretary-General Lim Swee Say said: "There are still many areas we have not been able to forge a strong tripartite partnership and as a result progress is not as fast as we like it to be. But more importantly, as a result, many workers in those respective areas are still not able to keep up with the pace of the economic growth and progress."

The labour movement is also asking its tripartite partners to consider revising the age for cutting CPF contributions.

"Broadly speaking, the labour movement's position is that (age) 50s is the new 40s. Therefore to start the CPF cut at the age of 50, we think, is too early," said Mr Lim.

The Central Committee's immediate task is to translate the labour movement's vision into a series of action plans in a holistic manner.

The Central Committee is expected to conduct in 2013 a mid-term review of progress made.