NTUC Chief, Who’s Not a Minister Now, Suggests Extending Jobs Support Scheme

By
Boon Hun
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NTUC Chief Ng Chee Meng might not be a minister now but he’s not done doing the good work.

Previously, it was clarified that he can still be the Labour Chief despite being voted out of power.

And when naysayers said he won’t be able to do his job as effectively as before since he doesn’t have access to the “big boys” table, his entire organisation stood behind him.

And now, he’s proving that he still has what it take by giving a suggestion that bosses in Singapore would love to hear.

“Extend The Jobs Support Scheme”

For those who are not in the know, the Jobs Support Scheme, or JSS for short, is simply a fanciful way of saying the government helps to pay for part of your salary so that your company can continue to hire you.

It’s supposed to end after helping to cover salary payouts in Aug 2020.

However, experts have previously said that the government should extend the support at least to the lower-income workers and the companies which are struggling.

Just because a caipng stall is allowed to open doesn’t mean they will earn enough money to survive.

People can just bring potatoes from their own home because they want to save money and the caipng stall still has to fire a helper or two to cut cost or close down completely.

And that’s exactly the angle that Mr Ng is coming from:

“The Government should consider extending the Jobs Support Scheme (JSS) beyond August given the weak economy.”

He urges the government to think carefully about whether there is a company that is really impacted by policy measures, and if so, can JSS be extended.

His New M.O.

Probably in response to allegations about him losing effectiveness after falling out of favour (sort of lah), Mr Ng also said that his responses and feedback to the government will be as direct as before when he was in the government.

He also pointed out that he has the “same access as before” to his former political colleagues.

“I will still have the same access to my former Cabinet colleagues to tell them what is the ground situation, give them honest feedback and see how government policies can match with business contacts and balance it out with workers interest.”

As for his credibility in front of businesses, he is confident that the past five years has shown that at the end of the day, NTUC exists to find a win-win-win situation for everyone.

All in all, it’s just business as usual, except maybe, he now has more time to focus on labour issues instead of trying to get LTA to reverse their decision on removing bus services.

The Story Behind Eagle Services Asia

If you’ve been following the news recently, you’ll know about the Eagle Services Asia (ESA) saga as well as the Pratt & Whitney retrenchment exercise.

You’ll wonder why Pratt & Whitney were allowed to retrench 400 workers while ESA was stopped by NTUC.

To add on to the confusion, ESA is a joint venture between Singapore Airlines (SIA) Engineering Company and Pratt & Whitney.

The answer, Mr Ng clarifies, lies in the way they do things.

ESA was forthright about their retrenchment package but did not follow the process and retrenched people haphazardly, resulting in this:

Meanwhile, Pratt & Whitney followed the right process and worked things out with the union, SISEU.

This allows the workers to know that they’ve been fairly laid off and the union to try and assist the retrenched workers with skills upgrading or getting employed at other companies.

Well, I don’t know about you but I’m feeling marginally better about working in Singapore now. Marginally.

Here’s a simplified summary of the South Korea martial law that even a 5-year-old would understand:

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Boon Hun
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