Hot off the heels of GE2015 in September, there will be ANOTHER election less than 2 months later next week in the last few days of October.
And *surprise* it was announced even before the GE2015 when previous NTUC Secretary-General Lim Swee Say shared the news to the media in April 2015.
Elect who for what?
Called the National Delegates’ Conference (NDC), which is conducted every four years (the next NDC will be in 2019), Mothership says this election is to determine who will lead the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC).
This is not the supermarket NTUC, nor the insurance NTUC, but the congress of 61 unions and taxi association.
Photo of NTUC’s leaders during Chan Chun Sing’s appointment as NTUC Deputy Secretary-General (Image: TODAY)
The contest is for 21 seats in NTUC’s Central Committee or CC (the highest decision-making body in NTUC).
Mothership says “the CC will proceed to elect among themselves the Secretary-General, the President, the Secretary for Financial Affairs (Treasurer) and Vice Presidents.”
How Many NDCs Have Been Held Ever in Singapore?
Since the NTUC was formally registered and had its first Annual Delegates’ Conference in 1964 (probably changed to National Delegates’ Conference along the way), the NTUC elections would have happened more often than we have fingers on two hands.
- NTUC’s First Secretary-General Election Win in 1970
How Does It Affect Me?
Five Stars and A Moon says unions are the grassroots of where all things labour happen in Singapore, where you make yourself heard and where you have a say in how political powers move to make things happen.
So the future of Singapore’s workers for the next 4 years rests heavily on who is elected in the CC.
