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9.
Govt opposes Member's Bill on additional statutory holiday
The Government does not support the Member's Bill gazetted today (Friday) by the Honourable Lau Chin-shek, which seeks to amend the Employment Ordinance by adding May 1 as a statutory holiday.
A Government spokesman said: "Statutory holiday is a matter which affects the interests of both employers and employees. As such, it has to be carefully considered and should only proceed on the basis of a consensus reached through tripartite discussion amongst Government, employer and employee representatives at the Labour Advisory Board."
"The Hon Lau Chin-shek's Bill is an unilateral attempt to amend labour legislation without going through this well-established tripartite consultative process. As a matter of principle, the Government will not support any bill which has not been considered by the Labour Advisory Board in the first instance," the spokesman said.
"The proposal to add one statutory holiday on a permanent basis applies to all employees in the private sector and would therefore affect production and work schedules in all business establishments in all economic sectors. This will add to the cost of doing business," he explained.
He went on to say that the list of general holidays for 1997 had been decided and published, so we should not attempt to make any change now.
"In fact, under the existing Employment Ordinance, employers may make May 1 one of the two floating statutory holidays," the spokesman added.
End
Anti-drug prevention continues to focus on youths
The Action Committee Against Narcotics' (ACAN) Preventive Education and Publicity (PE & P) Sub-committee today (Friday) endorsed a $2.5 million PE & P Programme for 1997/98 and the Report of the Task Group on Preventive Education Strategy.
The new Chairman of the PE & P Sub-committee, Mr Justein Wong Chun said: "Notwithstanding the drop in the number of young drug abusers reported, ACAN's PE & P strategy for 1997/98 would continue to focus on the youth drug abuse problem and the important role parents could play to steer their children away from drugs.
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