A leadership reshuffle is under way in the labour movement, with the creation of a new tier in the upper echelons of the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC).
It will be made up of a newly created position called assistant director-general, which is partly "an expansion of the career path for NTUC senior staff", an NTUC spokesman told The Straits Times yesterday when confirming the upcoming changes.
The NTUC did not say who would make up the new tier but sources say there will probably be four people. Two are veteran MPs and the other two are up-and-coming full-time staff.
They are:
• Former labour MP Yeo Guat Kwang, 55, and labour MP Ang Hin Kee, 51, and
• Mr Gilbert Tan Chye Hee, 46, chief executive of the Devan Nair Institute of Employment and Employability (e2i), and Mr Vivek Kumar, 39, director of NTUC's membership department.
The new structure is also partly prompted by a labour force that has become more diverse.
Said the spokesman: "Our work at NTUC has expanded and diversified... (and) to serve the evolving needs of a diverse range of working people, we see the need to enhance our talent development and succession framework."
The leadership path at NTUC is made up of two tracks. One is the elected union leaders' track and the other is the management track within NTUC.
In the union leaders' track, unionists are elected once every four years to the NTUC Central Committee, the highest decision-making body in the labour movement.
The committee is headed by NTUC president Mary Liew and its decisions are implemented by secretary-general Chan Chun Sing.
Mr Chan, who is also Minister in the Prime Minister's Office, is assisted by deputy secretary-general Heng Chee How, and five assistant secretaries-general: former NMP Cham Hui Fong, PAP MPs Patrick Tay and Zainal Sapari, as well as Mr Ang and Mr Yeo.
Since 1980, the secretary-general post has been held by a Cabinet minister. The NTUC has long been a training ground for new and aspiring PAP MPs. It also hires them in full-time jobs.
For the day-to-day running of union business, Mr Chan wears a little-known second hat as the director-general of the NTUC. He has 26 divisional directors and directors under him. They are full-time staff, and they include five PAP MPs.
This is the second track that is set to produce the four assistant directors-general.
The NTUC said it will be a way up the leadership ladder for senior staff with significant responsibilities.
Both Mr Yeo and Mr Ang are expected to relinquish their assistant secretary-general appointments before taking up their new posts.
Mr Ang, a labour MP since 2011 and director of NTUC's Freelancers and Self-Employed Unit, is an MP for Ang Mo Kio GRC while Mr Yeo, who entered politics in 1997, was part of the PAP Aljunied GRC team that lost to the Workers' Party in the 2015 General Election.
Both men will be on the same level in the new structure, the NTUC said, making it clear that neither is being put out to pasture.
"Both assistant director-general and assistant secretary-general are on a par in terms of seniority," the NTUC spokesman said.
