Founding Father of NTUC - MR DEVAN NAIR (1923-2005)

HE FIRST captured hearts and minds as a charismatic labour leader, who battled fiercely against powerful employers and the colonial masters for the rights of the commons worker. But Mr Devan Nair was also the same man who later united all three parties – unions, employers and Government – into a tightly woven trinity of equal and complementary partners.

And none will dispute that smooth labour ties that ensued formed the rock-solid foundation on which Singapore built up its economic success. For this, credit must be due to Mr Nair, a founding father of the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC).

He was an idealist whose involvement from his deep belief in social justice. But he also had a pragmatic streak, recognizing that workers needed real benefits and progress besides ideals.

“Justice without development must remain pie-in-the-sky,” he once said.

His foray into the labour movement began in 1950, when the English teacher joined and became general secretary of the leftist teachers’ union. But his involvement with communists in the flight against British colonialists got him thrown into jail in 1951. There he languished for just over two years, before he emerged, only to plunge right back into union work. Not only had he kept in touch with the Teachers’ Union, he also joined a new group – the Factory and Shopworkers’ Union.

“I wanted to help unions again,” he said in an interview in later years, explaining that the union sought English-educated members. With his superb command of English and Malay, he was the wordsmith drafting the union’s statements and the orator delivering fiery speeches in both languages, rising to become a powerful figure in Singapore’s Labour landscape.

The following year in 1954, he was approached to join the People’s Action Party (PAP) as one of its founding members. He proved to be the key person to help the PAP wrestle control of the unions away from its leftist offshoot.

In 1961, when leftist PAP members defected to join and form the pro-communist Barisan Sosialis, one trade union after another fell, domino-like, to the mighty left. These pro-Barisan unions grouped under the Singapore Association of Trade Unions (Satu).

Seven out of every 10 Chinese industrial unions joined Satu, which boasted 82 unions in all. Up against them was the fledgling NTUC founded – also in 1961 – by Mr Nair and a handful of others. On their side: the remnants of 12 unions.

At first, it seemed almost like a lost cause. Not only was Satu spearheaded by Chinese-educated leaders such as Lim Chin Siong and Fong Swee Suan, it had also clinched the support and service of English-educated ones like S. Woodhull and S. Thendayatha Bani - all ex-comrades and colleagues of Mr Nair.

On the NTUC side, however, most of the non-communists were English-educated, and faced difficulties reaching out to the Chinese-speaking workers. “We were a miserable minority. I personally thought we were going to lose,” Mr Nair was to admit later. But he did not blanch. For the next few years, the NTUC and Satu went head to head, seeking to out do each other in increased militancy. More industrial action, work stoppag,. pickets, strikes and sit-down protests followed.

One crucial difference distinguished the two factions.

While the Satu strikes were politically motivated, NTUC strikes were driven more by industrial disputes and labour grievances.

This was how NTUC gained ground overtime.

The communists miscalculated, said Mr Nair, by “banging away on the anti-colonial drum”.

“Anti-colonialism had ceased to be an issue!”

By the 1960s, Singapore had gained independence from Britain. Workers were beginning to turn their focus onto “the salary scale, higher add-on increments and so on”, he deduced. So more and more of them began flocking to the NTUC when they realized what it stood for.

“They could see…which union was able to deliver the goods: the salaries, bonus and working conditions. This was what mattered to them,” he concluded. This, combined with government sweeps against communist and pro-communist activists eventually crippled Satu.

In 1964, NTUC finally garnered the support of over 60 percent of the organized workers.

But the work was far from over. When Mr Nair returned to NTUC in 1969 after a stint in Malaysia as MP, he held the union body into its next and most major phase in transformation. In November that year, he organized and helmed the Modernisation Seminar. Unions were persuaded to abandon the old model of perpetual confrontation and strife against management.

Mr Nair firmly believed that the survival of a small nation state like Singapore hinged on integration at all levels, a very important part of which was “the tripartite association of Government, entrepreneurs and labour”.

Said former unionist and MP Lawrence Sia, 72: “He got the unionists to stop banging tablets and shouting slogans to work together with employers to build a modern labour movement."

He also pushed the trade unions beyond mere wage negotiations, into a broader movement that also looked into the social needs of workers. Hence, the foundation of cooperatives such as NTUC Welcome (a precursor to Fair Price supermarket chain, selling essential goods at low prices), NTUC Income (which provided insurance for low-wage workers), and NTUC Comfort, which helped people to become licensed taxi drivers and earn a living.

In his memoirs, From Third World To First: The Singapore Story, Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew writes:

“It was an enormous advantage for me to have Devan as secretary-general of the NTUC. He coordinated and fine-tuned my policies and inculcated positive work attitudes in the unions…Devan taught the union leaders the basic principles of economics and helped make the tripartite NWC (National Wages Council) a success.

One of Mr Nair’s final achievements in the labour realm was in 1981, after he had handed over NTUC leadership to Mr Lim Chee Onn.

Then the NTUC president, Mr Nair was called on by the Government to settle pay disputes between Singapore Airline (SIA) pilots and the company’s management, which had led to industrial action and flights being delayed.

The veteran unionist secured a pact between the warring parties, gave the pilots a dressing down for their “idiotic work-to-rule tactics”, and warned that the next time they, or other SIA employees, indulge in arm-twisting tactics, “you will be smacked down, good and hard”.

He had felt that the pilots were being disloyal in their action to inflict the maximum damage on the national airline.

Those closest to Mr Nair know that of the myriad of achievements – personal, political and union – in the 82 years of his life, it was the last of which he was proudest.

He kept few mementoes of his long career in public and political service.

But there was one special one: a plaque given by the Singapore Traction Company Employees’ Union in 1962, which had bestowed a lifetime membership on him.

It was on his study desk in his final home in Canada, on the day he died.

By Ms Laurel Teo (Straits Times 8 December 2005)