Mr Deputy Speaker, before I start, my greetings to my fellow unionists in both sides of the viewing chamber. Thank you for the support.
Mr Deputy Speaker, as unionists, our role is not just to support change but to ensure that the change works for our workers.
With all the discussions so far, there is no doubt that AI brings new opportunities, new tools, new ways of working and the potential for better jobs. For the Labour Movement, an AI transition with no jobless growth must mean three things.
a) First: AI augments workers, it does not replace them wholesale.
b) Two: the productivity gains from AI are reinvested into people, into training, into new industries, into better wages and real growth.
c) Three: no worker is left to navigate this transition alone.
I will speak to each of these in turn.
Ensuring Productivity Gains are Shared
Mr Deputy Speaker, if we are not deliberate, the gains from AI will not automatically be shared. They will tend to concentrate in firms with the scale and capability to deploy it.
The business case for transformation is compelling, and I support the Government’s announced efforts to support enterprises on this to accelerate their AI adoption so that they can seize new opportunities.
However, I call on businesses seeking to grow their pie, to be laser focused on job redesign and training to bring their workers along with them. Here, I must appreciate the many honourable members who have supported this call. Globally, there are warnings that AI could significantly reduce entry-level white-collar jobs in the coming years. Closer to home, DBS Bank has announced plans to reduce its contract and temporary staff by around 4,000 across various markets with the AI adoption.
While firms rationalise their workforce sizes and skills mix, we must be clear minded that not all of such rationalisation may translate into economic growth that enables our families to thrive, children to flourish, and seniors to enjoy their golden years.
Workers are therefore paying attention. They want to know that there are pathways for the gains from AI to benefit workers, and not just Management and shareholders.
Many workplaces are only at the beginning of figuring out what such pathways need to look like, and the pitfalls of failing to provide such pathways.
As mentioned by some members, recently, courts in China have been active in reviewing cases regarding the dismissal of employees due to AI-related restructuring and choosing to protect labour rights against unfair AI-related layoffs. In one case, the arbitration panel clarified that AI replacement was not valid grounds for dismissal. In another case, a massive role and salary reduction due to AI taking over the work was not considered a reasonable re-assignment proposal.
I would like to believe that we will not see such court cases in Singapore, hence companies must be held to a human transition standard. When a company deploys AI that eliminates roles, it should be required to have a transition plan, re-deployment offers, funded re-training, phased timelines.
It must work with the unions through the Company Training Committees, or the Tripartite frameworks to ensure this is managed together.
We should make it the baseline and not the exception. The social contract between employer and employee must evolve alongside technology.
Unions should be involved early in the company’s transition plans to integrate new technology, implement job redesign, and transition workers to handle new work.
In roles that AI is not displacing, AI is increasing the speed, density and complexity of work rather than reducing it.
However, I caution that when AI has pushed human boundaries and job redesign is not done adequately in tandem, there is concern that the working environment will be unsustainably very high with intensity and pressures that can lead to burnout, fatigue and poorer psychosocial health. We already see this in many of today’s workplaces, especially for PMEs, where work is increasingly outcome-based and the boundaries between work and personal life are more blurred. AI risks accelerating this trend even further.
The psychosocial implications of AI enablement deserve further attention too.
Our time-based employment protections were designed for a less digitally connected era with more fixed work hours and clearer boundaries. Today, these new emerging work patterns suggest that there is room to further evolve how we support workers.
This is where our unions in Singapore play a critical role. Through collective agreements, company-level engagements, and muti-company initiatives such as Queen Bee partnerships for NTUC’s Company Training Committee initiative, unions ensure that productivity gains are translated into better jobs, better wages, and most importantly, better working conditions; not just higher output and shareholder returns.
In addition, when AI is deployed to support hiring decisions and performance reviews, we must watch for unintended biases and ensure safeguards for the confidentiality of information.
Supporting Workers Through Transitions
Even when gains are shared, there is a harder question we must confront: what happens to workers whose jobs are displaced altogether?
Mr Deputy Speaker, the standard response we often give is re-skill, adapt, move on.
That advice assumes that workers have time, the financial buffer, and margin for error to take such risks. However, not all workers have this luxury. I want to be honest, because vague optimism is a luxury the displaced cannot afford, and we must make sure the system watches for this.
This is especially so for our mid-career and older PMEs. They are workers with mortgages and bills to pay, with children still in school, and often elderly parents to take care of. They are not just managing their careers; they are carrying entire households.
For them, transitions are high stakes. A failed transition is not just a momentary setback, it can mean prolonged unemployment, income loss and long-term repercussions for their loved ones.
And this, we are already seeing in the data that is provided by Ministry of Manpower, where there has been a rise in PMET retrenchments compared to the pre-recession norms in 2019, reflecting that there are greater exposure to sectors undergoing restructuring.
This is where we must go further to support our breadwinners and their families, ensuring that reskilling leads to real job outcomes, that transitions are supported, and that pathways to good jobs are clear, especially for those making mid-career shifts.
Instead of welfare, we have workfare. And instead of minimum wages, progressive wage models for key segments of our workforce. For the AI era, we seek better support for our PME jobseekers. We must continue close monitoring of those who applied for Jobseeker Support and help them bounce back as soon as possible for the next better job.
Giving Workers a Genuine Voice in AI Adoption
Mr Deputy Speaker, giving workers a genuine voice in AI adoption, where the first two pillars on sharing gains and supporting transitions cannot happen without the third: giving workers a genuine voice in how AI enters their workplaces is equally important.
Across advanced economies, one principle is becoming clear, worker voice must be part of how technology reshapes work. In countries like Belgium, unions and employers are already working together to establish norms around after-hours communication, workload, and staffing.
In Singapore, we have a strong foundation in our tripartite model. But as a unionist, I want to make a broader point. If we are serious about ensuring AI is used fairly and that the gains from AI-driven transformation reach workers, then we must welcome Unions to represent PMEs who are most vulnerable in the AI era.
PMEs are not a monolithic group — an engineer in aerospace, a financial analyst in banking, a project manager in tech — face very different environments and they go through very different impacts of AI transformations. Unions are able shape workplace norms from ground up in a targeted manner that recognises this diversity, hence employers should consider allowing unions to represent PMEs.
The mechanism for having the workers voice at the table is already here – it is the Company Training Committee. Through the CTC, unions work directly with management to chart out transformation roadmaps, redesign jobs, and upskill workers so that no one is left behind when a company transforms.
Let me just give one example. SBS Transit, with the support from the National Transport Workers' Union and the CTC Grant, overhauled its bus maintenance operations using AI. The company implemented AI-powered diagnostic systems for predictive maintenance — and instead of cutting jobs, it created a new "Diagnostic Expert" career scheme for over 50 workers. Such examples must be amplified and more employers should do such things.
We must continue to leverage this to support workers and enterprises in the AI transition. More recently, NTUC is partnering global technology leaders like Amazon Web Services and Huawei to equip 10,000 workers and 100 enterprises with AI skills through the CTC ecosystem.
At the individual level, union members can also tap on the unions’ support for up to half of the subscription fees for AI models. This is in addition to the six-month subscription provided through the government. I hope more leading MNCs can work with our unions to provide more training and uplift the AI skills of workers for our collective future.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Mr Deputy Speaker, I call for Singapore to move forward in three areas.
First, on sharing gains: we must ensure that as enterprises transform with AI, the gains are shared with workers — through fair wages, better working conditions, and clearer norms around work intensity, including expectations on after-working hours communication and responsiveness. These must be calibrated to our Singapore context but clear in intent.
Second, in supporting transitions: we must strengthen how we support workers through the AI Transition — by ensuring that AI enables enterprises to unlock new growth, that training leads to real job opportunities, that reskilling is twinned with job redesign, and that workers are not left to navigate these changes on their own.
Third, giving workers voice: workers and their unions must be engaged early when AI is introduced into workplaces — not just on hiring and other employment decisions, but on how AI changes job scopes, workflows, and performance expectations. This means welcoming unions' ability to represent PMEs, and scaling mechanisms like the CTC so that worker voice is embedded in every transformation journey.
An AI transition with no jobless growth is not a slogan. It is a commitment. A commitment that growth should mean something to everyone, not just those at the top of the economic pyramid, but to the nurse, the teacher, the logistics worker, the small business owner, the young person entering the workforce for the very first time.
They are not footnotes in the story of technological progress. They are the reason progress should matter at all.
These are not competing priorities; they go hand in hand, and we are standing at one of those rare inflection points in history where the choices we make today will echo for the next generation.
This is where the tripartite partners must deliver, must make this happen, it is also what I hope this House will help us deliver.
I strongly support the motion. Thank you, Deputy Speaker.
