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SINGAPORE – The details of a mandatory bonus to be paid to all resident cleaners by 2020 have been released Thursday, Nov. 15, indicating the exact amount, timing and scenarios under which cleaners must receive bonuses.
The update of the Progressive Pay (PWM) salary requirements for cleaning agents stipulates that cleaning companies must pay to resident cleaning agents an annual premium of at least two weeks salary as of January 1 2020.
This applies to Singaporean workers and permanent residents who have worked for at least one year in the same company, said the tripartite group for cleaners (CTC) in an addendum to its PWM report.
The premium was first proposed in December 2016 by the CTC and was passed by Parliament last month as part of an amendment to the Environmental Public Health Act.
It should benefit more than 40,000 cleaning agents employed by more than 1,300 cleaning companies here.
The PWM bonus, in addition to raising the salaries of cleaning agents, will be "a retention tool to motivate cleaners to stay with the same employer longer for better career progression," the CTC said in a statement. press.
The bonus will also encourage companies to increase the productivity of their workers by investing in their training, he added.
Part-time and relief cleaners, who are employed on an ad hoc basis, must also receive a bonus calculated on a pro rata basis of the contractual hours worked in that year, provided they have completed the 12-year period of service. month in the same period. same business.
However, as some customers may change their cleaning service provider, some feared that some cleaning agents would not be able to achieve the required service life in order to qualify for the bonus, without any fault on their part.
To remedy this, TCC stated that employers were still required to pay premiums to workers who did not meet the length of service criteria in such cases.
The addition report also states that cleaning workers must be paid in case of retirement or medical problems. If workers resign on their own or are dismissed for misconduct, no PWM bonus is required.
The bonus is not a performance bonus and so is not related to the worker's performance, but TCC noted that some cleaning companies are already offering a form of variable bonus to their workers. These include company-specific performance bonuses or 13-month bonuses, but exclude overtime pay and refunds.
Companies that already pay bonuses to their cleaning staff would be deemed to have met the PWM bonus requirements if they already gave more than the two-week minimum of the worker's base salary.
In addition to the bonus, the report also recommended planned salary increases of 3% per year at the PWM salary levels between 2020 and 2022. For example, general cleaners working in offices and food and beverage establishments, who receive a minimum wage of $ 1,200 in 2019, will see their salary increase by $ 36 in 2020.
Employers must comply with these requirements to obtain the necessary cleaning business license to carry on their activities in the cleaning industry.
The government has accepted the TCC's recommendations, said the Ministry of Manpower and the National Environment Agency in a joint statement.
The Deputy Secretary General of the National Congress of Trade Unions, Zainal Sapari, said in a Facebook post that the PWM, introduced in 2012, aimed to increase wages in a sustainable manner and fight against cheap purchases, which is the reason for the he described as a market failure.
"The PWM recognizes that there is no shortcut to help low-wage workers to progress, and to progress, they must have the opportunity to acquire skills, to be assigned a job. who uses them and is paid accordingly to improve their productivity, "said Zainal, who is also a member of the CTC.
"It differs from the minimum wage on many fronts – it's a ladder and not a floor, so every worker has a chance to progress."
For some companies, the financial challenges posed by rule changes are offset by other government subsidies to increase productivity.
The executive director of Sun City Maintenance's local cleaning company, Felix Swee, whose firm employs about 600 cleaners, said the previous adjustments to the PWM pay scale come after customer contracts have been signed.
"As this additional cost was not initially taken into account in the contracts entered into before the announcement, it weighs financially on our company," said Mr. Swee.
Fortunately for his company, other subsidies for older workers, such as the Government 's Special Employment Credit Initiative and the Employment Restructuring Grant, or WorkPro, have allowed to fill the gap created by rule changes, he said.
A combination of the PWM salary scale and Sun City's own human resources policies have allowed Cleaner's cleaner Ang See Gee to increase from $ 900 in 2007 to $ 1,400 in 2013. He is now paid about 1,700 USD per month after a vocational training this helped her to become a supervisor in the company last year, managing 30 cleaning people.
A PWM bonus would mean around $ 850 in extra pocket money each year.
Mrs. Ang, in Mandarin, said: "The salary was worse in the past, and for the moment, it is quite manageable for my needs.If I need more money, I can always work overtime. "
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