Secretary General Mr Lim Swee Say

Immediate Past Secretary General Mr Lim Boon Heng

NTUC Central Committee Members

Graduands

Ladies and Gentlemen On behalf of the Board of Governors of OTCi, I am pleased to extend my warmest congratulations to all our graduands.

This year is our 16th graduation event. Since inception, a total of 1406 have formally graduated from various programmes. Over the years the numbers graduating have grown. We started with 33 unionists receiving their Diploma in Industrial Relations in 1992. Today, 126 will graduate from the Diploma in Employment Relations (DER), Professional Diploma in Employment Relations (PDER) and the Advanced Certificate in Industrial Relations programmes. Our graduands also come from an increasingly diverse background. Besides the elected unionists, we have NTUC’s Industrial Relations Officers as well as HR practitioners from the public and private sectors enrolling for our courses. Looking back, our graduands especially our trade unionists have done us proud. Four of them in fact became Nominated Members of Parliament. Many others continue to be in leadership positions in the unions and the NTUC Central Committee. They include NTUC President John De Payva, Secretary for Financial Affairs Teo Yock Ngee and Vice President Cyrille Tan. Incidentally, Cyrille and Yock Ngee were amongst the top students and prize winners at the 1992 convocation.

Some others have moved on to carve out new careers. Like Thomas Thomas who just retired from the NTUC Central Committee is now the Executive Director of the Singapore Compact spearheading the corporate social responsibility movement. I am delighted too that two of the five newly elected unionists at last month’s NTUC Central Committee are graduands of the Institute. Tan Hock Soon is the General Secretary of the Food Drinks & Allied Workers Union and, G Rajendran is President of the Chemical Industries Employees Union. Rajendran will receive his Advanced Certificate in Industrial Relations today and is currently pursuing his Diploma in Employment Relations. His persistence and perseverance reflects the determination found in many of you. Another excellent example of determination is Shirley Goi Branch Chairman from the Food, Drinks and Allied Workers' Union. You saw her in the video sharing her difficulty with the English language. Shirley knew it will be a struggle writing essays and reports, and making presentations. She overcame this by first writing her essays in Chinese. Word by word, phrase by phrase she translated them into English with the help of her daughter who is studying at the NTU.

Another example is Sakunthala Devi, General Treasurer of the Kindergarten and Childcare Centres’ Staff Union from the 32nd intake of the ACIR class. Not wishing to impose further on her employer with union leave, Sakunthala took 6 days of her own annual leave to attend the ACIR classes - one-third of her annual leave entitlement!

Let me share one more example to show the commitment and passion with which many graduands pursue their studies. Tan Aik Cher from SURAWU was the class monitor for the 13th intake of DER. Despite a heart attack in April, Aik Cher continued to attend classes even whilst on MC. Not only that, he conscientiously carried out his duties as monitor. His classmate Yusope from UWEEI was touched that Aik Cher would take the trouble to sms or call him as he did not have an email. In September, Aik Cher had another attack. He is recovering and is with us today. Dutifully, he sent out emails to his classmates after the pre-graduation briefing earlier in the week. We wish Aik Cher good health and a solid recovery.

Leadership at the unions has always been about sacrifice and service. It is about having to juggle between family time, work commitments, union duties and personal needs; and keeping all these things in balance. This is no small task and I applaud all of you for the time, effort and dedication you have put in to finish your studies.

Let me now say just a few words about the Institute and its direction for the next few years. Whilst the economic outlook for next few years is good and prospects for most workers bright, there are several employment challenges for Singapore. These include amongst other things helping our low wage workers to upgrade and raising the effective employment rates of older workers and women. At the national level, the tripartite partners have launched several initiatives to address these challenges such as the Work Skills Qualification System and the Advantage Scheme. NTUC’s Labour Movement 2011 Plan launched this year is a major effort to addresses these challenges. OTCi will work with the NTUC and the tripartite partners in supporting these efforts through its varied education and outreach programmes to unions, employers and others.

This year we launched several new initiatives with the NTUC Leadership Development Department, together with the Singapore National Employers’ Federation (SNEF) and the Ministry of Manpower (MOM). We will sustain and build upon these efforts so that OTCi can be a focal point not only for training of trade unionists but also tripartite activities under the banner of the Singapore Tripartism Forum.

Additional resources will be set aside to broaden the educational experience of our unionists and make our courses more varied and enjoyable. This will include residential programmes, outdoor experiential training, learning journeys and industry seminars amongst other things.