National Trades Research Articles

Future-Oriented Learning in Workplaces and Company Training Committees

The world of work is dynamic and emergent, demanding different approaches to learning in, through, and for work. The main focus of this paper is to address the question of how we can think differently about learning in the workplace and supporting learning. Supporting learning is a pedagogical act in its broadest sense. Given the landscape of dynamic change in which individuals and firms work, pedagogies and ways of thinking about pedagogy need to be future-oriented. We need to develop people and firms that are able to thrive in constantly changing circumstances, to be able to work with emergence. In this paper, I put forward a framework for Future-Oriented Pedagogies based on mixed methods research work completed at the end of 2023, at the Institute for Adult Learning. Specifically, I consider how the National Trades Union Congress Company Training Committees could use the Future-Oriented Pedagogies framework to ensure the quality of offerings for formal learning in workplaces and how the Future-Oriented Pedagogies framework can be used to enhance a culture of learning that goes beyond formal arrangements for learning (training, undertaking online courses or sessions, and on-the-job training).

Analysis of Retrenchment Trends in Singapore

Between 2008 and 2023, there had been a fairly stable level of retrenchment of an average of 7.0 retrenched resident employees per 1,000 resident employees in Singapore. During times of crisis or rough economic conditions, the incidence rate rose, as seen in 2008–2009 during the Global Financial Crisis and 2020 during the onset of the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic with higher rates of 13.8 and 11.1 retrenched resident employees per 1,000 resident employees, respectively. Delving deeper into retrenchment figures in 2023, an upward trend was observed from a low of 3.4 per 1,000 resident employees in 2022, suggesting stronger economic headwinds and indicating softening labour market conditions. Examining retrenched employees who partnered with the National Trades Union Congress’ Employment and Employability Institute (NTUC’s e2i), we found retrenched employees took longer to be placed in 2023 compared to 2022. However, the situation was not entirely bleak as the proportion of placed retrenched employees with similar or better pay remained largely the same in 2022 and 2023. Evidence suggests that retrenched employees who take the first job that comes along and employees who lack relevant skills and as a result take more than 5 months to find their next job tend to receive lower wages. As such, the Singapore government’s suggested transition support scheme is timely, especially when taken in the context of other efforts by the Labour Movement, including engaging companies to transform to reduce eventual retrenchment numbers and strengthening the NTUC’s e2i’s career coaching capabilities to help employees better chart their career pathways.

Non-Wood Forest Products: History and State in Circular-Bioeconomy of Bulgaria

This work examine the inclusion of NWFR and their role in the country's economy.
 Data from the annual reports of the Ministry of Agriculture and Food (MAF) and the Forestry Executive Agency (FEA), from the National Statistical Institute (NSI), statistics from the UN (Comtrade), from Eurostat and other sources of information (scientific studies, FAO publications, etc.) are used.
 In Bulgaria, the organized collection and use of NWFP has been a livelihood for many people for more than a century. Тhe paper analyzed utilization of the most important NWFP harvested from the forests in the period 2001-2022 and their participation in the national and international trades.
 The brief review of the state and trends in the use of NWFP shows that Bulgaria there is a tendency of a permanent decrease in the use and income from NWFP in forestry during the period 2001 - 2022.
 At the same time there are significant reserves of unused NWFR, which indicates that there is a great opportunity to expand the use of NWFR and to increase the income of the forestry enterprises.
 Considering the potential and problems of the forest sector in Bulgaria, it is clear that the domestic demand and international markets of some NWFP (medicinal plants, wild mushrooms, some kinds of forest fruits, etc.) represent a significant opportunity for the forest bioeconomy and offer a chance for improving the supply of NWFP and supporting income generation in rural areas.
 The production of advanced products and materials on a biological basis with high value and the utilization of the hidden potential of NWFP represent key opportunities for the development of the bioeconomy in Bulgaria.

Addressing Employment Challenges for Ex-Offenders

This practitioner note provides an overview of the National Trades Union Congress’ (NTUC) engagement initiatives with ex-offenders, inmates, and employers interested in hiring them. These efforts aim to address the marginalised segments affected by the rapidly evolving economic and labour landscape. NTUC’s broader campaign to renew its compact with workers encompassed these engagements. In tackling the employment challenges faced by ex-offenders, NTUC remains dedicated to expanding the pool of inclusive employers, improving job retention rates, and fostering career progression. However, to facilitate long-term rehabilitation, it is imperative for tripartite partners and the community to collaborate on initiating workplace mentorship programmes, integrating therapeutic interventions with Career Retention Support initiatives, and introducing supportive communities for ex-offenders.

Supporting Youth to Realise Their Aspirations and Address Their Needs

This practitioner note examines the support Young NTUC, the youth wing of the National Trades Union Congress, offers to youth in Singapore. In such uncertain times and due to the wide variety of influences of which creates diversified new goals and values in life, youth’s motivations, needs and aspirations are constantly shifting, possibly on opposite ends of the spectrum. Most notably, mental well-being has come to the forefront of priorities amongst youth. This practitioner note will explain Young NTUC’s efforts in engaging youth to support them on their career and adulthood journey. Harnessing the strengths within the NTUC ecosystem and collaborating with like-minded partners, Young NTUC provides resources to help youth navigate their career journey confidently and develop their personal and professional selves. These efforts are continuously revised to holistically address issues of youth, with the latest effort being a year-long engagement to better address their work-life needs.

Can We Do More to Help PMEs Overcome Disruption and Discrimination in the Next Normal?

This paper examines the key concerns and needs of professionals, managers and executives (PMEs) in Singapore. The top concerns of PMEs are lack of job security and the need for greater support in employment and training opportunities. Drawing on the findings from the joint National Trades Union Congress-Singapore National Employers Federation PME Taskforce report, this paper highlights key insights from the taskforce’s engagements and follows with a condensed discussion of recommendations to enhance the employment and employability of PMEs.

Supporting Workforce and Company Transformation Through the Labour Movement: Company Training Committees and Training and Placement Ecosystem

The Labour Movement has always been an anchoring force in Singapore, where the government, employers and unions work for a common cause. This tripartite partnership has enabled the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) to be progressive in its efforts to support workers’ skills upgrading to stay relevant. Amidst the dynamic economic landscape, this article explores how NTUC, through the Company Training Committee (CTC) partnerships and the NTUC Training and Placement (T&P) ecosystem, continues to achieve its core purpose of advancing workers’ interests while helping companies to meet their business outcomes.

AMS Neve and Others (C-172/18): Looking for a Greater ‘Degree of Consistency’ Between the Special Jurisdiction Rule for EU Trade Marks and National Trade Marks

Abstract The Court of Justice of the European Union’s (CJEU) judgment in AMS Neve and others (C-172/18) clarifies how to interpret the concept ‘the Member State in which the act of infringement has been committed or threatened’ in the rule on special jurisdiction in the European Union Trade Mark Regulation. The CJEU held that Art. 125(5) should be interpreted to mean that the right holder may bring an action before an EU trade mark court of the Member State within which the consumers or traders to whom advertising and offers for sale are directed are located, even if the defendant took decisions and steps in another Member State to bring about that electronic display. With this judgment the CJEU introduces a targeting approach, which is something it has declined to do for the corresponding rule in Art. 7(2) Brussels Recast that applies to infringements of national trade marks. While the targeting approach is encouraging, the CJEU will need to clarify it to fulfil the objective of legal certainty. In addition, the CJEU appears to have interpreted Art. 125(5) EUTMR to exclude the Member State of activation. This is in contrast to Art. 7(2) Brussels Recast, which gives a right holder a choice between the Member State of activation and the Member State where the trade mark is registered. The article concludes that there is no justification for these differences in the special rules on jurisdiction applicable to EU trade marks and national trades.

EVALUATING THE IMPORTANCE OF BRAZILIAN PORTS USING GRAPH CENTRALITY MEASURES

ABSTRACT This study analyses the importance of Brazilian ports, based on the flow of non-containerized cargo in 2014, considering both national and foreign trades. For that, we study a non-traditional centrality, called layer centrality, which evaluates the importance of ports, based on how well they are connected to influential ports. This measurement was preliminarily proposed in 2011 and applied to a simple nonweighted network, though herein we extend it to weighted graphs. For comparison purposes, we also apply three traditional measures, namely degree, eigenvector, and flow betweenness centralities. Our findings show that the most impactful ports are private terminals Ponta da Madeira and Tubarao, although public ports, particularly Santos, are usually impactful for national trades. Moreover, we analysed the map for public ports and suggest a suitable location for a new public port.

Generativity: Establishing and Nurturing the Next Generation

ABSTRACTOngoing engagement with society and having a supportive environment are important protective factors for our mental wellbeing. Through meaningful engagement with children, seniors feel valued, empowered, and have a renewed sense of purpose. This is a health-romoting measure in enhancing and maintaining senior’s functional abilities and wellbeing. To support an ongoing engagement, National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) Health’s Silver Circle Senior Care Centre (SCC) and a co-located childcare (My First Skool) in Singapore jointly developed and piloted an intergenerational (IG) collaboration programme. This paper describes the development, interventions and lessons learned from a senior care perspective.

Impacts of Infrastructure on One Country’s Trade— An Analysis based on the “new Eurasian Continental Bridge Economic Corridor” along the “One Belt One Road”

In nowadays context of global economic integration, China has proposed the “One Belt One Road” Strategy in 2014, which fits into the new changes in global economy and finds us a new growth in economy development. This article has selected the panel data of 23 countries along the “new Eurasian Continental Bridge Economic Corridor” in 2002-2016 and analyzed the influences of one country’s economic infrastructure and social infrastructure upon its national trades using the fixed effect model. The research result shows that the construction of energy infrastructure may produce less obvious negative effects on one country’s national trade while the influences of the railway and aviation infrastructure will be varied because of the different natural endowments of the country. And one country’s trade will increase as construction of communication infrastructure develops. For social infrastructure, the effects upon one country’s trade are not obvious from education infrastructure construction, scientific research infrastructure construction, medical infrastructure construction and environmental infrastructure construction.

Нематериальное культурное наследие как инновационный фактор развития туризма в регионе (на примере ремесел и промыслов Воронежской области)

In the modern conditions of globalization and the ambiguity of the national identity of countries the increased interest in the cultural tangible and intangible heritage can be seen. This is due primarily to the fact that Russian regions are experiencing the adverse period in the development caused by external sanctions. It led to the fact that tourists are looking for opportunities to spend holidays on the territory of Russia. And in this case, the national artistic trades can be attractive factor of the tourist flow in any region of Russia. National artistic trades are a recognized part of the national culture. Voronezh region is a perspective region for the variety of types of tourism: cultural, educational, medical and health, business, event, ecological, rural and agro-tourism, etc. The relevance of the study of national artistic trades in order to develop a tourist industry is predetermined by the need to develop the regional competitive tourism industry, as well as to achieve the target values of indicators of implementing the Development Strategy of Voronezh region up to2020, in which tourism is one of the basic sectors of the economy. Therefore, the development of national artistic trades, strengthening their role in the socio-economic development of the region, stimulating economic activity of small and medium-sized enterprises, creating favorable conditions for the development of tourism will contribute to the socio- economic growth of the region and attraction of tourists to Voronezh region.
 The study was financially supported by RFBR Grant 16–46–360686 р_а.

Censorship and the limits of the literary: a global view

Censorship and the limits of the literary: a global view, edited by Nicole Moore (Bloomsbury, 2015)This volume of essays, edited by literary historian Nicole Moore, explores the dynamic between literature and censorship. Moore describes her collaborative scholarly project in these terms: 'The essays ... engage with more than twelve countries or nation states, placing into revealing contiguity a set of case studies examining national regimes, publishing industries, book trades, reading contexts or authorial circumstances' (5)Her introduction proposes two possible approaches to reading Censorship and the limits of the literary. First, through the four-part 'chronologically-ordered' structure, beginning in the Enlightenment with Simon Burrows's essay on 'French Censorship on the Eve of the Revolution', through the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to the Cold War (Part III) and then 'the final, contemporary section [which] has much to say about our world right now' (7). Within this structure, the reader can also move easily across the book's global perspective, selecting chapters on a range of countries, including South Africa, Quebec, East Germany, Australia, China and Iran.The second approach recommended by Moore turns on 'the volume's reflect[ing] a moment of congruence, when new directions in a number of scholarly fields are converging' (2). This approach would work well for the specialist reader, one who is willing to engage with Foucault's theories relating to contemporary censorship scholarship and 'the degree to which, rather than removed and antithetical opposites, literature and censorship have been dialectical forms of culture, each actively defining the other in ongoing, agonistic engagement' (2). The 'scholarly fields' mentioned include various forms of literary studies, history, theatre, film, books and printing.The contributors' areas of expertise, and the accompanying case studies, focus on historical period and on place. For example, Peter McDonald's excellent essay on 'the Critic as Censor' deals with Apartheid South Africa, where censorship was 'always officially euphemized as publications control'. McDonald is also the author of The Literature Police: Apartheid Censorship and its Cultural Consequences (2009); in his essay in Moore's collection, he covers the white, universityeducated, predominantly male censors who acted as 'guardians of the literary'. These were men who allowed J.M. Coetzee into their 'Republic of Letters ... despite [his] obvious offensiveness towards the government' while excluding Wilbur Smith, writer of 'morally corrupting pulp fiction for the masses' (124).Christine Spittel's rewarding essay, 'Reading the Enemy', deals with East German censorship during the 1990s. …

Народные художественные промыслы в пространстве России

National artistic trades as important element of culture and houshold activities are considered in the article. There is shown interdependence of natural and climatic, geographic, economical and social specifics of national artistic trades development in Russia. Maps of crafts in different federal regions are presented.

Striking Back: Novels of Class Conflict by Two Proletarian Women Writers

For the first time since the General Strike in Britain in 1926, the two biggest member unions of the national Trades Union Council (TUC), Unite and Unison, which together organise over three millio...

鳥インフルエンザ（Ｈ５Ｎ１）ウイルスの疫学的考察

1. Modes of transmission and the origin of H5N1 virusesAvian Influenza (A.I.) is transmitted by infected birds and their excrements. Also, AI is mechanically transmitted by surface means via contaminated food, water, feeds, soil, vehicles, humans, animals, flies, feathers etc. AI viruses can be spread by national or international trades of infected birds and contaminated products. Wild birds, especially migratory waterfowl, are a recognized source and reservoir for all subtypes of AI viruses. Some mammals such as dogs and cats are susceptible to the virus, but they are usually considered as the dead ends.In 1996, H5N1 virus was first detected in Guangdong Province, China. In 1997 the virus became widespread in poultry markets in Hong Kong, and killed 6 of 18 infected persons. The virus was wiped out by culling all domestic poultry in Hong Kong. In 2002, a new H5N1 genotype appeared again in Hong Kong, and the variant strains spread across Southeast Asia and South Asia between 2002 and 2007. The viruses can be divided into several clades such as V1, V2, V3 and Indonesian clades. The strains of H5N1 virus appeared in Korea (2003) and Japan (2004) were closely related to Guangdong strain/174/04 which is distinct from the abov 4 clades.In April 2005, a new variant H5N1 virus, which caused high mortality in both wild birds and poultry, was observed in Quinghai Lake, China. The virus was spread westward through migratory birds into Siberia, Kazakhstan and Turkey. This unprecedented mortality of wild birds associated with H5N1 viruses opened a new window for its movement within wild and domestic birds across Eurasia, the Near East and Africa. Virus strains are divided into 3 clades (EMA 1, 2, 3). The virus isolated in 2007 in Japan is closely related to one of those viruses of Quinghai origin (EMA clades).2. AI situation in EuropeThe European Union decided to make risk assessments of H5N1 virus entering via migratory birds into Europe, and active and passive surveillance for AI virus in wild birds started in July 2005. The conclusion of this study indicated a high risk of introducing the virus via migratory birds, and also a risk of the infection to become enzootic in Europe.The EU encouraged each member country (a) to make an extensive survey of AI viruses in both wild and domestic birds, (b) to vaccinate zoo birds and poultry that cannot be kept in houses (c) to keep all domestic birds in closed housing in high risk areas or zones and (d) to vaccinate domestic birds that cannot be housed.Between 2005 and 2006, H5N1 viruses were detected in wild birds in 25 countries. AI outbreaks in poultry farms were reported from 13 countries in Eastern Europe, and 4 countries in Western Europe (Sweden, Denmark, France and Germany). It is considered that migratory birds played a major role in spreading H5N1 viruses in Europe.The results of the risk control measures in Western Europe can be summarized as follows : (i) It was successful to protect the zoo birds by vaccination, but several birds died due to trauma of vaccination.(ii) Surveillance of wild birds was useful in improving early warning systems for poultry producers, and was effective in reducing the exposure risks of poultry.(iii) Mass culling of poultry and ornamental birds could be avoided.In 2007, H5N1 virus surfaced again in Hungary, UK, Czech R., Germany and France. It seems that H5N1 viruses became enzootic in some countries in Eastern Europe including Russia.(View PDF for the rest of the abstract.)

Singapore´s Continuous Search for Quality

The year 1983 marked the high profile taken by second generation leaders in the politics of Singapore. It also witnessed the death of Finance Minister Hon Sui Sen, health problems of a few members of the old guard, and the sixtieth birthday of Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, reminding Singaporeans that the remaining years of the eighties could be a crucial period for the dawning of a new era in which relatively new faces will have to establish themselves as political leaders. While Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew has long been pondering on the problems of succession and has in fact picked a second team, he was forced in 1983 to remove one leading member of the team, Lim Chee Onn, Secretary-General of the NTUC (National Trades Union Congress). His search for quality leaders who could soldier on, upholding what the PAP (People's Action Party) government had achieved so far, proved to be arduous and painstaking.

The Movement towards Labour Unity in Canada: History and Implications

One of the marching songs of the labour movement on this continent is “Solidarity Forever!” But in Canada, its exhortation has sometimes been more honoured in the breach than in the observance. At intervals over the last half-century and more, Canadian trade unionism has been “by schisms rent asunder, by heresies distrest.” In 1902, the Trades and Labor Congress of Canada (T.L.C.) threw out the Knights of Labor and national unions which were “dual” to international unions affiliated with the American Federation of Labor (A.F.L.). The twenty-three expelled organizations promptly formed the National Trades and Labour Congress. In 1908, this became the Canadian Federation of Labour, a name which has kept cropping up in Canadian labour history ever since. In 1919, just after the Winnipeg strike, and partly as a result of it, a considerable number of western unionists left the T.L.C. to form the One Big Union (O.B.U.). Between 1901 and 1921, small local Roman Catholic unions sprang up in the province of Quebec, and in 1921 these formed the Canadian and Catholic Confederation of Labour (C.C.C.L.). In 1927, the Canadian Federation of Labour and other national unions formed the All-Canadian Congress of Labour (A.C.C.L.). In 1936, some of the officers of the A.C.C.L. seceded to form the present Canadian Federation of Labour, which is no longer even mentioned in the Department of Labour's annual Report on Labour Organization in Canada (and has not been since the 1950–1 edition), and which the orthodox union movement never considered a genuine labour organization at all. (About ten years ago, a secession from the Canadian Federation of Labour formed the National Council of Canadian Labour, which —in spite of its grandiose title, and the faint air of respectability imparted to it by inclusion in the Department of Labour's report, which gives it 42 locals and 5,640 members—is also beyond the pale of orthodox unionism.) In 1939, the executive of the T.L.C. suspended the Canadian unions affiliated with the Congress of Industrial Organizations (C.I.O.) in the United States. These unions formed a Canadian C.I.O. Committee.