The National Trades Union Congress (NTUC), which includes almost 99 percent of organised labor in Singapore, said it took a different stance from traditional union movements around the world, but the goals were the same.

It marked International Workers Day by presenting Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong with its Distinguished Comrade of Labour Award because he "laid the policies for a better lifestyle for workers".

Deputy Prime Minisiter Lee Hsien Loong was to be guest of honour at a workers May Day march past.

In his May Day message, the NTUC secretary general Lim Boon Heng, who is also a minister without portfolio in the tightly formulated city-state, said the uncertain economic outlook this year was a key concern for workers.

"The NTUC has been urging employers to implement flexible wage systems -- so that wage costs, not jobs, can be cut," he said.

Lim sees international labour movements and the NTUC as both wanting to improve the quality of life for workers, but the NTUC took a cooperative approach while others were "more adversarial or confrontational."

The NTUC's deputy general secretary Matthias Yao, a minister of state without portfolio, said a monthly variable component built into salaries would allow wages to be cut in bad times, and restored when conditions allowed.

"Most unions elsewhere in the world will never agree to such a concept. But here in Singapore it is the unions that are pushing for it," he told reporters.

"I am happy to say we have strong support from the unions (and) many employers see that it is a win-win system for both management and workers."

Goh, in a speech to the NTUC's May Day dinner also backed the idea of a variable wage component.

"More jobs can be saved if wage costs can be adjusted more quickly by the market when there is a sudden business downturn," he said.

The Singapore economy slowed sharply to 4.6 percent growth in the first quarter, down from 11 percent in the previous quarter, and the government expects annual growth of 3.5-5.5 percent against 9.9 percent in 2000.

In Singapore, which was riddled with labour strife before independence in 1965, the government has stressed the importance of tripartite cooperation between unions, employers and the state.

With extensive legislation covering labor and union matters, and an Arbitration Court to handle industrial disputes that cannot be resolved informally, there has been only one minor strike in the past 15 years.