NTUC calls for a the Progressive Wage Model (PWM) to be expanded at a quicker pace and to be made universal for all sectors.
NTUC Deputy Secretary-General Koh Poh Koon made the call in Parliament on 1 September 2020.
In what he calls the “Triple Uplift” formula, Mr Koh said that the PWM – when applied in unison with the Workfare Income Supplement (WIS)and recommendations by the National Wages Council (NWC) – has increased the overall take-home pay and retirement savings of the lower wage worker.
He said: “Through this ‘Triple Uplift’ formula, the wages at the lowest 20th percentile have seen a higher annual growth rate of 4.4 per cent from 2014 to 2019, as compared to 2.3 per cent in the preceding five years.
“The wages of low-wage workers have also been growing faster than those with higher income. Hence income inequality in Singapore is at its narrowest in almost 20 years.”
The PWM aims to help low-wage workers to upskill and benefit from higher wages and better work prospects.
Mr Koh said that the PWM is currently only mandated in the cleaning, security and landscape sectors and that it has helped to substantially raise the wages of workers in these sectors by around 30 per cent between the years 2013 to 2018.
However, he noted that these three sectors only account for approximately 78,000 workers or 15 per cent of all the workers in the lowest 20th percentile of salary ranges.
“We should do more and expand PWM to more sectors and help more low-wage workers,” he said.
Mr Koh hopes tripartite partners can come together to conduct an in-depth study on the universal implementation of PWM across more sectors so that it can be employed quickly when the economy recovers post-COVID-19.
“If we truly want to build a more inclusive society and narrow the income gap, the pace of PWM implementation across more sectors must quicken,” he said.
