On 12 December 2016, National Trade Union Congress (NTUC) announced that cleaners will receive yearly salary increases from 2017 to 2019 for a total of S$200. Various government agencies like Ministry of Manpower, National Environment Agency and Workforce Singapore said the salary increase will benefit more than 40,000 resident cleaners employed by 1,200 cleaning businesses. For an industry that faces high turnover rate due to the perceived unsustainable low wages, this is a good move by the government. According to NTUC, the median salary for full-time cleaners was S$1,100 and gross wages were S$1,200 in 2015. With such low salaries, it is hard to imagine how a cleaner can live a quality lifestyle in an expensive city like Singapore. For the longest time, our society has always downplayed the contribution of cleaners. The general perception is that due to the low skills required for their jobs, they don’t deserve a respectable level of salary or salary increases (if any) for that matter......