How we manage industrial relations

Industrial relations are governed by laws that articulate clearly how labour-management relations are to be conducted in various scenarios.

Industrial Relations Act (IR Act)

The Industrial Relations Act regulates a trade union’s function in employer-employee relationships. In 2015, the Labour Movement successfully lobbied for the Act to be amended to allow rank and file unions, recognised by the employers, to represent executive employees on a collective basis. This presents a tremendous boost to the Labour Movement’s efforts to expand our scope of representation to include Professionals, Managers, and Executives (PMEs) and offer them greater protection at the workplace.

Trade Unions Act

This Act regulates the activities of all trade unions in Singapore including the proper management of union affairs, safe custody of funds, and the free election of union officers. All of NTUC’s 60 affiliated unions are governed by this Act.

Work Injury Compensation Act (WICA)

The Act represents another triumph in the Labour Movement’s drive towards greater workplace safety, and a quicker and lower cost mean for settling work-injury claims. It allows employees to make claims for work-related injuries or diseases without taking legal action.

Retirement and Re-employment Act (RRA)

As part of the Labour Movement’s efforts to promote re-employment of mature workers, NTUC set up the Re-employment Expert Group, later renamed as the Raising Effective Retirement Age Group to prepare companies for the changes in re-employment legislation. In 2012, the Retirement and Re-employment Act (RRA) was enacted, setting the minimum retirement age at 62 and providing for these older workers to be re-employed up to the age of 65 if they are able and willing to continue working.

In January 2014, the Raising Effective Retirement Age Group assumed a new identity as U Live, functioning as a department in NTUC. Since then, U Live Department, with the tripartite partners, have been pushing vigorously to raise the re-employment age ceiling from 65 to 67 for workers to continue working if they desire so.

In September 2014, the Tripartite Committee on Employability of Older Workers recommended that the Government voluntarily raise the re-employment age. This recommendation was later accepted and is slated to come into effect by 2017.

In July 2017, the re-employment age ceiling was officially raised to 67. Find out what this means for both companies and workers via the U Live Re-employment Guidebook.

In 2019, the Tripartite Workgroup on Older Workers endorsed the increase in the retirement and re-employment ages to 63 and 68 from July 2022 as planned. The CPF contribution rate, which was earlier deferred, proceeded in Jan 2022. These changes were done with a purpose to enable mature workers to continue to have a chance and choice to make their contribution and continue to save for their retirement adequacy.