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Thursday, September 7, 1972
SPECIAL ALLOWANCE FOR WORKERS ENGAGED ON "UNPLEASANT WORK"
Over 10,000 workers of foreman rank and below in the Urban Services
and Resettlement Departments who are employed on obnoxious and unpleasant work
are to receive a special allowance of $45 a month as from October 1.
A small number of staff in the Public Works and Urban Services Departments
are already receiving this allowance but the new arrangements announced today
will make many more workers eligible.
The main labour force in the Cleansing Division and in the Abattoir
Section of the Abattoirs, Hawkers and Markets Division and the New Territories
Division of the U.S.D. as well as in the Resettlement Department will now benefit
from the allowance.
The award of the "dirty work" allowance is in addition to the recent
10 per cent pay increase and revised cost of living allowance awarded to workers
paid on Model Scalo I. The revised cost of living allowance automatically
increases by $15 for every five point rise in the Modified Consumer Price Index
for men and a proportionate increase for women.
This means that there is a built-in arrangement for the cost of living
allowance to rise should the cost of living go up.
The extra cost of meeting payments of the "dirty work" allowance will
be about $6 million for a full year.
Some 7,000 workers in the U.S.D. and about 3,500 in the Resettlement
Department will be eligible for the allowance. They include labourera, gangers,
chargemen, and foremen engaged on street sweeping and estate cleansing, refuse
collection duties, demolition work, disinfecting duty, grave digging, in cremation,
burial and exhumation work and squatter clearance.
/The announcement
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