News

Professional and Managerial staffs are caught up in the middle to meet the unrealistic targets at the expense of decent work and proper work life balance at the respective workplaces. Delegates who participated at the 2nd UNI Apro P&MS conference in Melbourne Australia were pressing that to ensure fairness in performance related compensation schemes. John De Payva, President of UNI Apro P&MS said; unions should have a right to intervene on behalf of P&MS members when setting up Key Performance Indicators for them. The second UNI Apro P&MS conference was organized on the heels of 3rd UNI P&MS conference which was also held in Melbourne Australia. Lively debate followed a presentation by Dr. Rene E Ofreneo, on the theme “Decent work for the People in the Middle” at the conference. Clarifying the mis-conceptions, he said that P&MS are not a part of the top management of an organization who formulate policies and business plans for the company. Instead, they are in the transitional belt of top management. Accordingly, they have a right to join trade unions. Furthermore, they share the similar concerns like the rank and file for job security, fair wages and treatment. Dr, Ofreneo emphasized that above all P&MS categories should have a right to be heard. Therefore, in order to enjoy decent work and work life balance they need to organize in to unions to protect their rights at work. Under the theme of Organizing P&MS members a panel discussion was also held. The speakers made presentation on Role of Professionalism, Role of Lifelong learning, Diversity Management and Work-life balance at the panel discussion. There were 45 [23 delegates, 12 observers, 10 guests] participants registered for the conference, representing twenty unions in seven countries in the Asia & Pacific region. Gender composition was 13 women and 32 men. John De Payva, Secretary General of SMMWU Singapore was re-elected as the UNI Apro P&MS president for another term at the conference. The following were elected to the UNI Apro P&MS committee. Tomatsu Watanabe representing NWJ Japan was elected as the Deputy President of UNI Apro P&MS.  East Asia [ 2 Positions] - 1. Tomatsu Watanabe – NWJ Japan 2. Minoru Shibuya – JSD Japan  South East Asia [ 2 Positions] - 3. John De Payva – SMMWU Singapore 4.[To be nominated by the UNI affiliates in Malaysia Representing P&MS members]  South Asia 5. Karthik Shekar – UNITES Professionals India  Ocenia 6. To be nominated by APESMA - Australia The second conference of the UNI Apro P&MS endorsed a work plan prioritizing the activities for the period commencing from 2008 to 2012. {Refer the annexed work plan}