The shipping activities generated enormous employment and economic growth, in addition to ensuring that food and essential supplies were coming in. Seafaring was booming as immigrants from other parts of Asia gravitated to Singapore in search of a better life.

But many of these seafarers, most of whom had little or no education, were still working in appalling conditions unchanged from decades ago. They suffered low wages as well as unsafe and unhygienic working conditions.

The time was ripe for change.

A pioneering group of Local Trade Officers and Mates sought to turn their fortunes around. Together, on March 22, 1951, they formed the Malay Marine Officers’ Association (MMOA), the earliest predecessor of the Singapore Maritime Officers’ Union (SMOU).

The MMOA[1] began life in a tiny one-room office in Jalan Sultan, where it played a small but vital role in Singapore’s budding trade union movement.

A humble house

As Singapore rebuilt the city in the post-World War II period, commercial and small-scale industrial activities expanded. With this, came the resurgence of labour activities – marking a new era for trade unions.

The first trade union registered under the Trade Unions Ordinance was as early as 1946, right after the Japanese surrender. That same year, the first seafarers’ union – Malay Seamen’s Union of Singapore – was also formed.