SINGAPORE – After delivering his last major speech as prime minister on May 1, PM Lee Hsien Loong was surrounded by unionists dressed in red polo shirts who gave him gifts and lined up to take photos with him.
PM Lee on May 1 delivered his final major speech at the annual National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) May Day Rally 2024, held at Sands Expo and Convention Centre. The event was attended by some 1,700 unionists, business leaders, government officials and guests.
He is set to pass the baton to Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong, who will be sworn in as the Republic’s fourth prime minister on May 15.
PM Lee received several standing ovations throughout his speech, with some in the audience holding up balloons that spelt out “I LOVE U PM LEE” and blowing whistles.
The group behind the balloons was the Food, Drinks and Allied Workers Union. The union’s president Julie Cheong said that unionists wanted to express their appreciation to PM Lee, especially after the Government subsidised up to 75 per cent of workers’ wages during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Ms Cheong, 52, recounted meeting PM Lee over lunch at the Istana before several May Day rallies. The meetings were held to give PM Lee a sense of unionists’ and workers’ sentiments on the ground.
“Each time, PM Lee made us feel comfortable. He doesn’t make us feel that we are in any way inferior in the Istana or when we meet him,” said the union leader, who works as a guest relations executive at Four Seasons Hotel.
Another group that waited in line to present PM Lee with a gift was the NTUC Aerospace and Aviation Cluster. The cluster’s union leaders signed a plaque that they presented to PM Lee.
One of the union leaders was ST Engineering Staff Union general secretary Sazali Zainal, who told The Straits Times that during the Covid-19 pandemic, PM Lee met him and other union leaders in the aerospace industry to discuss jobs when air travel was restricted as countries shut their borders.
“He was open to the feedback and the suggestions we gave him, about training, about job redesign, job upskilling, basically just to protect workers from having to leave the industry,” said the 51-year-old aircraft engineer.
Mr Sazali said that PM Lee’s recounting of his 40th year in politics and public service was touching. “He has left behind a legacy that I think he should be proud of. As a Singaporean, I’m also very proud of him,” he added.
Veteran union leader John De Payva, 74, who was NTUC president from 1997 to 2011, was part of a committee tasked to help bring Singapore out of recession in 1985, which PM Lee chaired. Mr De Payva said PM Lee, who was then DPM, made sure the committee formed robust wage reform proposals that were practicable.
“He (encouraged us) to explore ways and means of tackling the rigidity of the wage system,” he said, adding that PM Lee is a “guiding light” for the labour movement.
Mr De Payva recalled how PM Lee sought his views when preparing for his maiden May Day Rally speech as prime minister in 2005. “We have such a humble prime minister,” he said.
Ms Mary Liew, general secretary of the Singapore Maritime Officers’ Union (SMOU), said that the growth of the labour movement was made possible by the stability of the country under PM Lee’s stewardship.
Ms Liew, who was NTUC president from 2015 to 2023, said: “I’ll always remember his quote that ‘tripartism is our national treasure’; we must never take it for granted and we must always grow it.”
The SMOU was among several unions that presented gifts to PM Lee. Ms Liew, 61, said the union’s gift was a set of medallion coins depicting a hybrid orchid cultivated in 2016 to mark SMOU’s 65th anniversary.
“We wanted to present this gift that meant a lot to us to PM, to show the appreciation the SMOU has for him.
“The Prime Minister has walked a journey with the labour movement, so he’s part of our family,” said Ms Liew.
