Labour Movement working closely with Tripartite Partners to help cleaning service buyers and providers ease into new Licensing Regime

With the Environmental Public Health Amendment Bill coming into force on 1 April 2014, all general cleaning businesses in Singapore will have to be licensed before 1 September 2014. The new licensing regime will level the playing field by imposing higher standards of employment across the cleaning industry and lead to more professional and reliable services, as well as ensure cleaners are paid according to the Progressive Wage Model (PWM) advocated by the Labour Movement.

There are more than 900 cleaning companies in Singapore hiring about 69,000 cleaners. Once the licensing regime fully kicks-in, an estimated 55,000 resident cleaners will stand to benefit.

Outreach to Stakeholders

With the PWM being one of the requirements under the licensing regime, the Tripartite Cluster for Cleaners (TCC) has been in discussion and working closely with the industry’s stakeholders to help cleaning companies ease into the new licensing regime come 1 September 2014. Various focus group discussions, briefing sessions and consultations have been conducted with cleaning service providers to gather feedback on the TCC recommendations on the PWM requirement, which was released in October 2012.

In the lead-up to September 2014, the TCC has committed to the following ongoing outreach efforts:

1. Stage 1: Preparing Cleaning Service Buyers and Service Providers

To prepare cleaning service buyers and service providers for the licensing, 12 briefing sessions have been organised. These were attended by 161 service buyers and 320 service providers.

The National Environment Agency (NEA), who is a member of the TCC, is also working on a leaflet to provide licensing information to cleaning service buyers and providers. The information on the leaflet can be found on the NEA website at http://app2.nea.gov.sg/cleaningbusinesslicence.

2. Stage 2: Reaching out to Cleaners

Information kits will be created to share with cleaners on the TCC recommendation’s defined job scopes, skills levels required for each role, as well as corresponding wage levels. These kits will be distributed to U Care members and union members who are cleaners, as well as to cleaners who attend the NTUC U Care Centre’s outreach events such as roadshows and employment seminars.

Cleaners who have queries may call the NTUC U Care Centre at 1800-225-2828.

              c.   Stage 3: Educating the Public

Leveraging on social media platforms as well as websites of the respective tripartite partners, information will be disseminated to educate the public, who can act as whistleblowers against companies who do not comply with the licensing.

Changes to TCC recommendations

The TCC revealed its recommendations for a progressive wage structure for the cleaning sector in October 2012. Since then, the Labour Movement has been engaging companies on the PWM and Best Sourcing Initiative, which encourages service buyers to outsource responsibly and adopt best practices when doing so.

When the TCC met on 2 April 2014, the following refinements were made based on the feedback received from cleaning service providers through the focus group discussions, briefing sessions and consultations:

1. Introduction of Guiding Principle

• As a guiding principle, workers whose job responsibilities fall into more than one job category shall be deemed to be in the job category that he spends a majority of his time in, and thus, the corresponding wage level applies.

2. Revisions to Progressive Wage Model for Cleaning Industry

• “Out-Patient and “In-Patient” cleaners are now both classified under “Healthcare Cleaners”.
• “Multi-Skilled Cleaners” and “Machine Operators” will be combined under one new category called “Multi-Skilled Cleaners cum Machine Operators”.
• The “Class 3 Mechanical Drivers” classification will now just be “Mechanical Drivers”.

3. Revised definitions of cleaning job types

• Inclusion of definitions for the various cleaning jobs referred to in the PWM.
• Modification of existing definitions.

Cleaning businesses can find details and clarifications of the above changes in the Addendum of the Tripartite Cluster for Cleaners Report on the NTUC U Portal (http://bit.ly/TripartiteClusterforCleaners). A list of Frequently Asked Questions is also available at this link.

The TCC will meet periodically to review the recommendations.

Survey by the Building Construction And Timber Industries Employees’ Union

In a recent survey conducted by the Building Construction And Timber Industries Employees’ Union (BATU), 6,690 cleaners from 32 unionised cleaning companies are already benefitting from PWM ahead of the licensing legislation. This makes up about 67% of all cleaners who are union members under BATU. BATU has 50 unionised cleaning companies.

The Labour Movement is heartened that these companies are receptive to PWM and are taking steps to implement the model even before licensing kicks-in.

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