Singapore’s restructuring of low-wage work: Have cleaning job conditions improved?

Abstract

Singapore’s Progressive Wage Model, introduced in 2012 and mandatory in the cleaning industry since 2015, is a skills- and productivity-based approach to redesigning jobs and restructuring wages in the largely outsourced cleaning, security and landscaping sectors. Focusing on cleaning work in the food and beverage industry, this case study examines some early outcomes of this national drive to reduce wage inequality by improving the pay and conditions of commodified work in a sector subject to outsourcing-based cost competition. Based on interviews with cleaners, supervisors and managers, the findings suggest that in general, government and the trade union and employers’ association have worked together, to set wages and conditions transparently. Nevertheless, enforcement issues mean that cleaners remain vulnerable. They have limited information about their employment benefits and face various types of poor conditions, some sanctioned by and others in violation of labour laws. These vulnerabilities have structural roots, including rent imbalances and cheap sourcing, factors that commodify jobs. The implementation of the Progressive Wage Model may have helped de-commodify cleaning jobs for Singaporeans and permanent residents, but such outcomes are still dependent on non-systemic and unenforceable factors such as the kindness of individual supervisors. While a promising start has been made, Singapore’s initial efforts to improve incomes and conditions in low-wage work will nevertheless require stronger regulatory commitment. JEL Codes: I38, J31, J48, &58, J88

The effect of minimum wages on consumption in Canada

“…Ng et al (2018) studied the outcomes of Singapore’s Progressive Wage Model that was mandated in the cleaning industry in 2015. The authors found that there were some improvements in wages and conditions particularly in the areas of paid sick leave, vacation leave, health benefits, transport allowances and meals for restaurant workers.…”

“…Nonetheless, low-paid cleaners were still subject to certain vulnerabilities. These vulnerabilities, as Ng et al (2018) pointed out, were often structural problems within the workplace environment, and therefore, eroded the potential benefits of having minimum wages set at living wage levels. In many cases, workers were unaware of the benefits, and employers violated employee rights.…”

Employer and employer association matters in Australia in 2018

“…They have had great success in demonstrating their IR policy-influence to members. This appears to contrast not just with the more positive, collaborative agendas of leading corporations and associations in Western European countries, for example on climate change transitions (European Round Table of Industrialists, 2018), but with how, for example, the Singapore National Employers' Federation has collaborated with government and unions in trying to reduce pay inequality by improving pay and conditions in low-pay sectors (Ng et al, 2018). At the same time, Australia's major associations' policy successes have produced an oppositional environment that threatens some successes.…”

Separate Lives, Uncertain Futures: Does Covid-19 Align or Differentiate the Lives of Low- and Higher-Wage Young Workers?

“…With rapid economic growth that propelled it from a poor developing country to one of the richest and most industrialised countries in the world in merely three decades (Ng, 2013 ), Singapore has experienced acutely the various duality-inducing developments outlined in the previous section. As a highly globalised economy, many of the technological adoption, performance management, and cost reduction practices are often promptly adopted (Bali et al, 2019 ; Ng et al, 2018 ; Stanton & Nankervis, 2011 ; Teo, 2007 ; Wan, 2003 ). From a small trading post, Singapore’s rapid economic growth began with labour-intensive manufacturing in the 1960s and 1970s (Chiu et al, 1997 ; Pang & Lim, 2015 ).…”