Tan Kin Lian's Blog: Low wage for cleaners

Sunday, November 04, 2007

Low wage for cleaners

I met a school principal. He told me that his school has outsourced the cleaning to contractors.

To win the contract, the contractor had to bid a low price. He engaged cleaners and paid them a low salary. The salary for a cleaner used to be above $700 per month and has since dropped to below $700 on the renewal of the contract. He found out the low salary by talking to the cleaning woman.

The contractor declared the base salary as $300 monthly for contribution to the Central Provident Fund. At this salary, the cleaner will have very little savings for their retirement.

Lesson: The outsourcing of cleaning work to contractors is depressing the wages of the cleaners.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...: A view from another perspective:

a) at least the cleaning lady gets to keep her job (i hope!). she won't even think of retirement if she can't meet her daily needs. she will be in a worse off condition if her job goes to a foreign talent.

b) a lot of manual work can be outsourced to lower wage workers and this will make the pricing more competitive - it will mean savings for the school and in turn, the school can use the money for other enrichment classes for the future generation or pass the savings back to the government.

Singapore wages are quite high compared to the rest of Asia (excluding Japan) therefore outsourcing to contractors is a way to increase competitiveness and productivity.; November 05, 2007 12:44 AM
Anonymous said...: This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.; November 05, 2007 7:24 AM
Thomas Phua's Blog said...: MOM has required companies to buy medical insurance to take care of the foreign workers, but what about our own local workers who earn such low wage and need to fend for themselves when they need such medical care most.

Why is the government taking care of foreign workers and own child children of our own soil is cast aside?; November 05, 2007 9:51 AM
Anonymous said...: The cost of living is high in Singapore. How can the cleaning lady survive on less than $700 a month.

She has to work a full day's work. It is back breaking.

Why exploit our lower workers, when the top CEOs are earning 10,000 times of the wage?

In many countries, there is a minimum wage which gives everyone a decent income, to live on and to retire.; November 05, 2007 12:53 PM
Anonymous said...: You cannot expect those who earn millions to be able to understand what it is like to survive on a few dollars a day. The tips they give is much more than that.; November 06, 2007 3:25 AM
Tan Kin Lian said...: Someone said that at least the cleaning lady has a job.

All workers should have a decent wage for a day's work. And adequate savings for retirement.

Due to the high cost of living in Singapore, a wage of less than $700 is inadequate.

We should not be exploiting our lower income workers, just because they do not have other choice.; November 06, 2007 9:20 PM
Anonymous said...: Outsourcing is not confined to low end manual work. We see a lot of IT outsourcing going on. IT outsourcing has the same effect of depressing wages and at the same time reduce quality of work.; November 07, 2007 3:25 PM
Anonymous said...: This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.; November 08, 2007 12:13 AM
Regine said...: The lady could have done herself some retirement planning beforehand. This could be a lesson for youngsters who are able now to start planning early for their retirement instead of waiting till they are near retirement age then they started to panic about savings that huge amount of money for retirement which may not last them for long.; November 09, 2007 12:25 AM
Anonymous said...: Dear Mr Tan,

Many a time, it started at the Civil Service, civil servants following a System drawn up for their procurement blindly. I have come across a MOE School posted on Singapore Government Electronic Procurement Portal (GeBiz) to outsource/re-contract a Gardener for SGD 800.00 a month. This salary is way too low with the standard of living in Singapore. Maybe the principal of this school should gather her teachers to do gardening after work to equate a more realistic salary.; November 14, 2007 12:47 PM