Tripartite partnership for the transformation of the Singapore maritime industry - Part C : Union’s perspective

Abstract

On January 2016, the Committee on the Future Economy (CFE) was established to relook Singapore’s current economic strategies and to develop new strategies for the future. Subsequently, on 12 January 2018, the Sea Transport ITM was launched. It is specifically designed for Singapore’s maritime industry to promote innovation, increase productivity and upskill the maritime workforce. This aims to make Singapore a global maritime hub for connectivity, innovation and talent. The tripartite partnership, which includes the government agencies, industry firms and worker unions were highlighted to be a crucial factor for the successful actualisation of the Sea Transport ITM. Through methods of qualitative interviews, this paper studies the roles and responsibility each member of the tripartite have and the challenges of theirs that are not addressed. Invaluable insights from various entities were consolidated using an affinity diagram, compared and contrasted to provide a higher-level understanding of the tripartite partnership. Findings from the aggregation of interview inputs reflected a big gap towards a perfect tripartite partnership. From the union’s perspective, the barriers towards successful tripartite partnership are the industry’s and workers’ negative mindset towards digitalisation and job displacement, changing workforce demographic and the diversified nature of the maritime industry. This report recommends the use of the Tripartite Partnership Collaboration Framework (TPCF) coupled with a two-pronged approach to facilitate collaboration and align motives between the different parties. The TPCF framework aims to further tighten relationships and cooperation between tripartite partners.