FROM LABOUR TO MARKET: ANALYSING NTUC’S "MODERNISATION" THROUGH WELCOME AND FAIRPRICE (1969-1983)

Abstract

This thesis explores how the government-backed National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) dominated and transformed Singapore’s labour movement since the 1960s. Following the People’s Action Party (PAP) government’s restrictive labour policy, Singapore’s labour movement was rendered ineffectual and became monopolised by NTUC. Consequently, the labour movement lost relevance and shrank in terms of membership and finances. In response, the government-NTUC leadership organised the 1969 Modernisation Seminar to reform the labour movement through policy workshops and discussions. This thesis will investigate the Seminar and its outcomes. It contributes to the existing scholarship by questioning the nature of “modernisation” and its implications on NTUC’s transformation. In bringing into focus the nature of “modernisation”, this thesis highlights the outcomes of the Seminar on the labour movement and Singapore. This thesis also seeks to investigate NTUC’s shift from labour agitation to market-oriented practices, as a result of “modernisation”. The Seminar transformed NTUC from a traditional labour organisation into a market-based national institution. In order to explore the outcomes and manifestation of the Seminar, this thesis would study the origins and operations of NTUC’s supermarket co-operative Welcome and eventually, Fairprice. Welcome entered the market in 1973 and merged with NTUC-affiliated supermarkets to form Fairprice, Singapore’s largest supermarket chain, in 1983. This thesis examines state-enterprise relations through the abovementioned co-operatives, and study their implications on state-labour relations in Singapore. These co-operatives served a national market and passed down cost savings nationwide. It appears that such union-funded co-operatives behaved like national enterprises in Singapore’s political economy.