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SINGAPORE: A new working group was launched on Thursday (October 29) that will present measures to address issues related to wages and the work environment of low-wage workers.
The tripartite working group on lower wage workers will be headed by State Minister for Manpower Zaqy Mohamad, and will include members of the National Trade Union Congress (NTUC) and the National Federation of Singapore Employers, representing workers and employers respectively.
The task force’s goal is to raise wages and well-being for low-wage workers, particularly by improving the progressive wage model (PWM).
PWM refers to “pay scales” intended to increase the wages of low-wage workers by enhancing their skills and improving productivity. It currently covers about 80,000 workers in the cleaning, security and landscaping sectors, and will apply to elevator and escalator technicians in 2022.
The task force will develop policy ideas that include ensuring that wage growth in the PWM sectors continues to exceed average wage growth, increasing the number of workers covered by the model and expanding the number of occupations covered by the PWM, the ministry said. of Manpower (MOM). in a sentence.
It will also push for more companies to offer progressive salaries.
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Zaqy said during a press conference on Thursday afternoon that plans to bring PWM to more sectors were already announced in Parliament in March, but this was interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Now that the coronavirus hits the economy, the task force will have to figure out how companies can improve the living standards of low-wage workers amid the recession.
“If you want to expand PWM today, you really have to think about how this affects businesses today in today’s context because … as you know, businesses are downsizing, businesses are checking their headcount, the last thing to scare them off. and it will have an inadvertent effect, ”said Mr. Zaqy.
He added that the discussion is not about “ideology” nor is the Government against the minimum wage.
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The task force will publish an interim report in the middle of next year and publish the full set of findings in the first quarter of 2022, MOM said.
Mr. Zaqy emphasized that the study will not only consider wages, but also productivity, working conditions and the impact of other low-wage worker schemes. Salary models other than PWM will also be evaluated to find a more “sustainable” one for each sector.
Sectors like cleaning and security have benefited from PWM because these services tend to be outsourced and wages in these industries were depressed before the model was introduced in 2012, he said.
But with the push to improve productivity alongside wages, PWM had little impact on costs for consumers and businesses. However, the results may vary with other sectors.
“So these are areas where I think it is important that unions, employers and the government work to create a win-win situation,” he added.
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MOM said that the real income of the sectors covered by the PWM grew about 30 percent between 2014 and 2019, with more than 21 percent growth in real income in the median of all sectors.
The formation of the task force was previously announced by Human Resources Minister Josephine Teo and NTUC Secretary General Ng Chee Meng on October 11.
