Ms Cheong, 52, recounted meeting PM Lee over lunch at the Istana before several May Day rallies. The meetings were held to give PM Lee a sense of unionists’ and workers’ sentiments on the ground.
“Each time, PM Lee made us feel comfortable. He doesn’t make us feel that we are in any way inferior in the Istana or when we meet him,” said the union leader, who works as a guest relations executive at Four Seasons Hotel.
Another group that waited in line to present PM Lee with a gift was the NTUC Aerospace and Aviation Cluster. The cluster’s union leaders signed a plaque that they presented to PM Lee.
One of the union leaders was ST Engineering Staff Union general secretary Sazali Zainal, who told The Straits Times that during the Covid-19 pandemic, PM Lee met him and other union leaders in the aerospace industry to discuss jobs when air travel was restricted as countries shut their borders.
“He was open to the feedback and the suggestions we gave him, about training, about job redesign, job upskilling, basically just to protect workers from having to leave the industry,” said the 51-year-old aircraft engineer.
Mr Sazali said that PM Lee’s recounting of his 40th year in politics and public service was touching. “He has left behind a legacy that I think he should be proud of. As a Singaporean, I’m also very proud of him,” he added.
Veteran union leader John De Payva, 74, who was NTUC president from 1997 to 2011, was part of a committee tasked to help bring Singapore out of recession in 1985, which PM Lee chaired. Mr De Payva said PM Lee, who was then DPM, made sure the committee formed robust wage reform proposals that were practicable.
“He (encouraged us) to explore ways and means of tackling the rigidity of the wage system,” he said, adding that PM Lee is a “guiding light” for the labour movement.
Mr De Payva recalled how PM Lee sought his views when preparing for his maiden May Day Rally speech as prime minister in 2005. “We have such a humble prime minister,” he said.
