Friday, April 13, 1973
SICKNESS ALLOWANCES AND HOLIDAY PAY FOR WORKERS
To Be Extended
New legislation is underway to extend sickness allowances and
holiday pay to all manual workers irrespective of their earnings, and
to non-anual workers whose monthly earnings do not exceed $1,500.
I
The bill
Details of the bill are published in today's Government Gazette.
entitled the Employment (Amendment) (No. 2) Bill 1973 --
will be introduced into the Legislative Council on April 25.
The Assistant Commissioner of Labour, Mr. M.C. Lao, said the
bill sought to replace the Industrial Employment (Holidays with Pay and
Sickness Allowance) Ordinance and simplify the present qualifications
for sickness allowances.
An employee will qualify to receive sickness allowance of half
his wages (excluding overtime) if he has worked for his employer for not
less than three months. He will not be paid if the duration of sickness
is less than three days on any one occasion.
"This is to discourage malingering on the part of the employee",
said Mr. Lao, "However, if the sickness exceeds three days, sickness
allowance will also be paid. for the first-three days."
An employee can accumulate the entitlement to sickness allowance
at the rate of one paid sickness day for each completed month of service,
with a maximum accumulation of 24 days.
/The onus