NTUC Looking To Revive ‘Surrogate Employer Scheme’ Which Takes In People on Unpaid Leave To Upgrade Skills & Earn An Allowance

Due to the Covid-19 outbreak in Singapore, businesses here aren’t faring very well.

Some companies have also started to ask for staff to voluntarily take unpaid leave for this period.

Which essentially means that while they still have their job, they’re no different from an unemployed individual.

The National Trades Congress Union (NTUC) is Singapore’s Labour Movement. They’re in charge of looking after the welfare of Singaporean workers, including keeping them employed.

Seeing the situation evolving into something that could possibly destroy Singaporean workers, MP Patrick Tay, Assistant Secretary-General of NTUC, asks if they could revive the Surrogate Employer Scheme during the first day of the budget debate.

The Surrogate Employer Scheme

Surrogate means to become a substitute.

Basically, NTUC is willing to substitute as an employer temporarily for Singaporean workers.

How? By taking in people to upgrade or train in new skills, and giving them an allowance.

A Win-Win Situation

Mr Tay described the Surrogate Employer Scheme, which was created back in 2003 during the Sars period, as a “win-win” situation.

For one, these people still have some sort of income during the economic downturn.

And two, when the economy picks up again, they are able to quickly return to their jobs with additional qualifications.

One bird, two stones indeed.

The Surrogate Employer Programme

Now, this scheme isn’t something that NTUC came up with out of the blue.

According to the book, 50 Years of Technical Education in Singapore: How to Build a World Class TVET System, NTUC launched the NTUC-Surrogate Employer Programme (SEP) back in Oct 2001.

This programme helps NTUC union members to upgrade their skills without the support of their employers.

It was created to counter one of the shortcomings of another NTUC programme, the Skills Redevelopment Programme (SRP), which allows employees to upgrade skills with the support of their organisations.

In other words, if you want to upgrade but your boss doesn’t like you, then you cannot upgrade skills liao.

So, What’s The Difference?

Why did a labour MP bring this up? Is it to make it sound like NTUC is doing some work? Not really.

Think about it, to be a surrogate employer, you need to have money.

While it’s entirely possible to budget for union members, MP Patrick Tay is looking to bring this project to include people affected by the Covid-19 outbreak.

That means no matter whether you’re a member or not, you can join.

How much would that cost? 

That’s probably why NTUC is bringing this up during the Budget debate.

After all, the money has to come from somewhere, and it’s likely that Ah Gong is the only one rich enough to do so.

Encouraging businesses not to give up on employees and to upgrade them instead in preparation for the economic upturn is something that Minister of Trade and Industry, Chan Chun Sing, is always emphasising during this economic downturn.

Meanwhile, for us Singaporeans, what we can do to help alleviate the economic downturn is to go out more often and makan.

Provided you’re healthy lah. If you’re unwell, just stay home and order food delivery.

After all, do I need to remind you that this period is the best time for deals too?