Mobilising Workers via Digital Means: Reinventing Trade Unions for the Digital Age

Abstract

Singapore’s economy has witnessed successive waves of transformation with its highly skilled and competent workforce serving as a backbone to continuing economic growth. Tripartism is a key feature of Singapore’s economy and underpins workforce participation and the mediation of employer-employee relations through collaboration between trade unions, employers, and the government. As with other unions around the world, changing social and economic realities are putting pressure on trade unions in Singapore to digitalise and adapt to new forms of worker engagement. Social norms are also rapidly changing parallel to the new forms of work and opportunities afforded by digital technologies. Amidst challenges such as membership declines, institutional changes and the rise of the gig economy and precarious labour, some unions have struggled to transform, while others have thrived and grown by adopting modern tools and technologies to engage with and organise emerging groups of workers. This article explores how the organisation of workers through digital means can benefit Singapore’s trade unions in light of its economic and employment climate, and the historical trajectory of trade unions. We focus on how engagement, which is of paramount importance for trade unions, can be complemented or enhanced through the adoption of digital tools. We also present several examples from different parts of the world demonstrating how traditional unions are digitalising through transnational collaborations and collectives, and through the adoption of communication technologies, digital platforms, and campaigns to support worker organising. In so doing, we distil key lessons for trade unions in Singapore that are contemplating and exploring organising workers through digital means.

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