Singapore's Labour-Management Relations

This assignment delves into the intricate workings of Singapore's labour-management relations. It examines the pivotal role of tripartism, involving government, employers, and unions, in shaping industrial policies and fostering a harmonious work environment. The analysis also covers key aspects like the flexible wage system, National Wages Council guidelines, and prevailing employment practices within Singapore.

Running Head: Labour Management Relations
Labour Management Relations

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Contents
Introduction.................................................................................................................................................1
Singapore Industrial Relationship................................................................................................................1
Key players of Labour Management Relations............................................................................................2
 Trade Union.....................................................................................................................................2
 Government....................................................................................................................................3
 Employer.........................................................................................................................................4
 Employee.........................................................................................................................................4
Competitive advantage to Singapore..........................................................................................................5
Conclusion...................................................................................................................................................7
References...................................................................................................................................................9

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Introduction
Labour management relations refer to the relationship between the workers and the management
of the organization. The relationship includes many aspects such as trade unionism, collective
bargaining, grievance handling etc. Labour management relationship is one of the most
complicated relationships which shall be understood by the HR manager of the organization and
taken care of. If the relationship is built in a positive manner then the organization aims for
higher target and competence in the competitive global market (Questia, 2017).
Further the report includes thee labour management relationship in companies of the Singapore.
Further it also analyses Singapore industrial relation, role of its players and competence which
the company gained through this process. The details are discussed below:
Singapore Industrial Relationship
The Singapore industrial relationship Act helps to country to maintain and regulate the employer
employee relationship by preventing and settling trade disputes in an organization. There are a
few ways through which the issues are settled down the management, like collective bargaining,
arbitration, tripartite mediation of individual disputes etc. The NTUC (National Trade Union
Congress) works together in with other partners to protect the interest of workers of Singapore.
The union works with an aim keep the workers in the competitive and employable advantage; it
also aims to maintain social justice and equality in Singapore. The NTUC is held liable to
maintain adequate industry relations in Singapore (STF, 2017).
The industrial relation landscape in Singapore is assessed by the tripartite relationship between
the management, government and the employers. This alliance helps in approaching and

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managing the relation with the labour union. This process helps the country in encouraging
economic success and social progress as well. Industrial relations in Singapore and governed by
the laws that clearly tells the process of union-management relationship in different aspects
(NTUC, 2017).
Key players of Labour Management Relations
Mainly there are four key players of the Labour Management Relationship name, government,
union, employer and employee. These are those people both collectively and individually work
in the direction of keeping the interest of labour safe in the Singapore. Further the activities of
these key players are:
 Trade Union: talking about the National Trade Union Congress, the federation is
currently affiliated with 58 unions under them and two associations as well. The aim of
the trade union of Singapore is to protect the rights of the workers and advocate for their
interest in case of breachment (STF, 2017). Further the roles of the trade union of
Singapore are discussed below:
 Representation and protection of employed people: representation refers to the
process of representing and working for the welfare of the community. The
NTUC through their affiliation and unions protects the interest of the workers and
make them regarding their right which they shall not sacrifice. Appeals, fraudery,
negotiation, retrenchment activities shall not be initiated by any company of
Singapore, instead the management shall always aim to create a win-win situation
for both of the parties. The workers are unaware of such rights, thus it is the
responsibility of the unions to protect their interest (Metters, & Metters, 2017).

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 Training and enhancement of skills: according to the need of growing era, all
workers want to enhance their skills and gain more income by working smartly in
the organization. For the same purpose the network of NTUC develop an
understanding among them and encourages them to upgrade their skills and
achieve their personal targets. Talking about the role of union UniSIM-NTUC
Sponsorship, SAA Global Education (NTUC) Scholarship and Union Training
Assistance Programme (UTAP) are some of the initiatives taken by the union
to satisfy their obligation towards the employees (Warner, 2014).
 Government: it is the obligation of the government of Singapore to initiate laws and
make statutory bodies which clearly articulate the labour management relationship
throughout the country. Further the government of Singapore is obliged to relate the
interest of workers with the monetary benefits given to them. Ministry of Manpower is
the body made by the government of Singapore which formulates and implements and
policies related to the workplace and workforce issues as well. The mission of MOM is to
build competitive advantage in the country by securing the future of the labour
economically. The body is assigned to initiate the following key outcomes from its
process, that are,
1. Progressive workplace
2. Global competitive forces
3. Financial security and lifelong employability in people of Singapore
The MOM is held liable to maintain industrial peace and promote jobs in the county with
the aid of tripartite co-operation. Initially the role of MOM was to resolve the dispute
occurred in the company and enforce law, but the establishment NWC, the responsibility

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has changed to address employment, co-ordinate views of different and initiate social and
work life balance in the country (Kuriyama, 2017).
 Employer: the Singapore National Employers’ Federation (SNEF) was found in the
year 1980 by the amalgamation of two employer organization namely, Singapore
Employers Federation (SEF) and the National Employers Council (NEC). The vision of
the federation is to help the employers of the organization to maintain harmony and peace
in the organizational culture. This also helps the employer to improve their workforce
competitiveness and improve the quality of living. They shall take care of the employees,
shareholders and consumers as well (Giri, 2017). The core activity of this federation
includes the following aspects:
 Training of human resource and develop their managerial skills
 Sharing of information related to human resource or industrial relation
development. The mode of sharing such information is through seminars and
group meetings.
 Provide consultation and advisory services to the workers regarding the rights or
management issues.
 Spread awareness regarding the rights and duties of different people to perform
(Gospel, Pendleton, & Vitols, 2014).
 Employee: employee of the organization being the most important asset can work
effectively only if they get adequate working conditions in their environment. Apart from
that, considering the role of employees, it is their duty that they shall not tolerate and kind
of discrimination or wrongful practices in the management of the organization. On the
account of employer as discussed earlier, as it is their duty to provide adequate services to

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them and create suitable conditions for them, so it is the duty of employees to adapt
different conditions present in the market, and help the organization to gain the
competitive edge in the market. The employee shall focus on their personal training and
development so that their output increases the efficiency of the company and the country
as well. They shall also fully utilize the services and resources available to them, also
they shall make use of their right properly and shall not waive them in any typical
situations. So, these are the key of the employees of the country. Without the interest of
employees no company can earn efficiency in the market (Huat, 2017).
Competitive advantage to Singapore
With the initiation of labour management relationship in the industrial working of the country
Singapore, it has been noticed that the state of the workers of the country have started getting
better and their efficiency is also increased. This relationship being an important aspect in
maintain adequate growth of the country shall be adopted by every company so that the
indirectly the country receives competitive advantage in the global world.
The progressive wage model is related to increasing the productivity of organization by
upgrading the skills of the employees and providing them better returns as well. This model is
developed for the workers of the country to assist and motivate them work better to earn more.
Further talking about the tripartism mechanism used in the organization so as to assist the labour
management relationship in the country, the policy directly favored the economic growth of the
country (Bekhouche, 2015). With traditional process the country used to face issues in settling
economic transactions and accessing the resources adequately. But with this process the country
obligated the department to fulfill their duties due to which work was easily flowed in the

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country implementing sustainable growth for the country. The National Trade Union Congress
and supported the government to change their traditional adversarial unionism and
confrontational labour-management relations, so that peace and economic sustainability is
initiated in the country. Further considering the economic performance of the country, the
performance grew by 2.0 % in the year 2016 along with which the total employment apart from
foreign domestic workers grew by 8600 in the same year (MOM, 2017).
The employment rate also showed a positive growth as it rose to 2.1 % in 2016. Further the
consumer price index of the country fell by 0.5 % and the overall labour productivity was
measured by real value added per worker (MOM, 2017). It grew by 1.0 % in previous year. The
company also started providing more incentives and bonuses to the employees of their
organization and the Central Provident Fund of the country grew by 3.1 %, there was not much
difference in the grades of bonus but the basic wage rate had major changes in them. Due to this
process the rate of growing inflation also reduced to 4.0 % (MOM, 2017). Additionally the NWC
aims to amend the rate of risk and uncertainty attracting the country in the upcoming year 2017.
The country started growing in varied segment of the industry.
Furthermore in addition to the competitive advantage of the company flexible wage system
refers to the system which allows the companies to adjust and cost their costs in harsh times.
Also this mode helps the companies to flexible pay rewards to the employees of the organization
on the basis of their performance (MOM, 2017). KPI (key performance indicator) is a
management tool which helps the companies to measure the performance of their employees and
reward them accordingly. This aspect include financial as well as operational indicator (IMD,
2017).

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It has been seen that Singapore constantly earned goodwill and an identified position in the due
to their efficient growth in all sectors of the market. Further the growth of a country is identified
with the working efficiency of labour of the company. Adding to it the labour will only work
efficiently if there is presence of good management and labour relationship law in the company.
Thus, Singapore has coined them as the world’s best country where companies can initiate their
business activities. With this, it can be known that the company has good economic market, and
the foreign exchange is marked on the 10th place out off total 121 countries (Holmes, 2017).
Talking about the competitive advantage the company is placed on the third position. Also
Singapore is remarked as Asia’s best country having logistic supply chain management. In terms
of labour as well, the country comes in Asia’s top countries who have best skilled and motivated
labour. Lastly, talking about investment, Singapore is earmarked as the best country for
investment in the business sector, the present combined score of the country is 73 (report given
by (BERI) Business Environment Risk Intelligence) (EDB Singapore, 2017).
Conclusion
Thus in the limelight of above mentioned events the fact that shall be noted is that any country
can gain the economic competencies in the global market if the labor management practices are
efficient. So it is the duty of the key aspect to manage the issues and initiate to solve them to
provide maximum benefit to the worker of the country. In the country Singapore, the Tripartite
Partnership helped the country to assign themselves duties and working according to provide
maximum benefits to the workers of the country.
The above mentioned analysis discusses about the role of government, employer, employee and
union of the country Singapore in monitoring and maintains labour management relationship in

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the industrial activities of the country. Also it also states the competencies which the country
received after adequately monitoring and analyzing the drawbacks in the system in managing
them. The country Singapore gained a numerous benefits after utilizing the essence of labour
management relationship in the system and implementing them properly. Thus, it shall be said
that it is the need of the ear that all countries shall now implement plans and actions which
discuses about the issues of labour management relation and implementation plans to resolve
them.

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References
Bekhouche, Y., (2015). The Global Gender Gap Index 2014. World Economic Forum.
EDB Singapore, (2017). Facts and rankings. Viewed on September 26, 2017 from <
https://www.edb.gov.sg/content/edb/en/why-singapore/about-singapore/facts-and-
rankings/rankings.html>
Giri, M. P. (2017). Industrial Relations–An Overview. Journal of Industrial Relationship,
Corporate Governance & Management Explorer, 1(1), 21-25.
Gospel, H., Pendleton, A., & Vitols, S. (Eds.). (2014). Financialization, new investment funds,
and labour: an international comparison. Oxford University Press.
Holmes, F. (2017). Switzerland And Singapore Top U.S. In Global Competitiveness Ranking.
Viewed on September 26, 2017 from <
https://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2015/10/06/switzerland-and-singapore-
top-u-s-in-global-competitiveness-ranking/#6dcf8e834325>
Huat, C. B. (2015). Singapore: Growing Wealth, Poverty Avoidance and Management.
Developmental Pathways to Poverty Reduction, 201.
IMD, (2017). The World Competitiveness. Viewed on September 26, 2017 from <
https://www.imd.org/uupload/IMD.WebSite/wcc/WCYResults/1/scoreboard_2014.pdf>
Kuriyama, N. (2017). Stereotypes of Japanese Human Resource Management and Labour–
Management Relations. In Japanese Human Resource Management (pp. 3-34). Springer
International Publishing.

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Metters, R., & Metters, R. (2017). Gender and operations management. Cross Cultural &
Strategic Management, 24(2), 350-364.
MOM., (2017). Flexible Wage System. Viewed on September 26, 2017 from <
http://www.mom.gov.sg/~/media/mom/documents/statistics-publications/flexible-wages-
for-smes-english.pdf>
MOM., (2017). National Wages Council (NWC) Guidelines 2017/2018. Viewed on September
26, 2017 from < http://www.mom.gov.sg/newsroom/press-releases/2017/0531-nwc-
guidelines-2017-2018>
NTUC., (2017). Industrial relations landscape in Singapore. Viewed on September 26, 2017
from <
https://www.ntuc.org.sg/wps/portal/up2/home/industrialrelations/irlandscapeinsingapore>
Questia., (2017). Labour-Management Relations. Viewed on September 26, 2017 from <
https://www.questia.com/library/sociology-and-anthropology/labor-and-work/labor-
management-relations>
STF., (2017). National Wage Council. Viewed on September 26, 2017 from <
https://www.tripartism.sg/page/National-Wages-Council/>
STF., (2017). Tripartism in Singapore. Viewed on September 26, 2017 from <
https://www.tripartism.sg/page/Tripartism-in-Singapore/>
Warner, M. (2014). Culture and management in Asia. Routledge.

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