Brace yourself. A spanking new labour movement big on family is coming your way.

In an one-hour face-to-face/heart-to-heart with the media (booya, achievement unlocked) last week, newly-minted labour chief Chan Chun Sing outlined the challenges the union faces and unsurprisingly, given his background in the Ministry of Social and Family Development, talked about the importance of family.

Seems like Chan is putting his MSF experience to good use. Or maybe he's just doing a Vin Diesel impression.

Anyway, here are six times the labour chief emphasised on family.

1. Remember, it's about the family.

"In the labour movement, regardless of whatever era, there's only one set of priority: how do we make sure that our workers have good jobs, good salaries to take care of themselves and their families."

2. But taking care of family starts with taking care of workers, which means upgrading is a must.

"We first start with how we settle the big macro environment to make sure that as a team - the labour movement, management, government - is the strongest team, the most attractive team to attract the investment here. Once the investment comes in, we dissect and look at which part of the value chain we want to capture and make sure our workers capture that part of the value chain so that the salary can keep going up and not to fight to stay in a unchanging part, low-value part of the value chain - that will be quite sad. Get the macro environment right, get the micro part correct so that the workers can upgrade.

But we also need to understand their challenges in trying to upgrade themselves."

3. Even though some might find it tough to juggle.

"For people who are 40 to 50 years old they have various commitments: children, the elderly to take care of, it's not so much that they don't want to upgrade. It's the question of how can they juggle these many responsibilities and how can we help them to make the transition."

4. Because chances are, you will outlive your job.

"I think if you ask the average Singaporean workers, they are very progressive. In the past, as in my mother's generation, chances are that the company will outlive her, the job will outlive her. So she can do one job for a whole life.

Today, the average lifespan of a company or product line is shrinking. The chances of one person doing a job for the whole life is becoming increasingly rare, which means the younger generation have to keep upgrading throughout their whole life cycle."

5. Education is continuing.

"In the past, we talk about compulsory education, which means that you need to have 10, 12 years of compulsory education as a foundation. Today, it's not about compulsory education, today is about continuing education. That every 10 years, five years we need a fresh dose of ideas and skills. It's almost like the Operating System upgrade. It's not just about compulsory education that provides the base, it's about continuing education for our workers to keep them current, to take and seize those opportunities that are there.

If we can do this well, then our workers can take care of themselves, they can take care of their families. Then we can be quite satisfied. But it's running on the treadmill because as we run, the competition is running. This is where our focus and challenges will be in the couple of years."

6. All these are for one thing: Family.

"The ultimate goal is basically: our workers are individually competitive, collectively competitive and we have the macro environment to make sure that our workers continue enjoy good pay, good jobs, can take care of themselves, can take care of their families and you know what I always say ever since my days in MSF: the more our workers can take care of themselves, their families and be independent, the less we need to worry about taking resources from the national pool, then we can really focus the resources to help those who cannot help themselves.

That must be the ultimate goal."

Photos by Tan Xing Qi.