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Passage of Government Bills on employment benefits urged
The Secretary for Education and Manpower, Mr Joseph W P Wong, today (Friday) urged Legislative Council (LegCo) members to support the series of Government Bills currently before LegCo and which seek to improve employees' rights and benefits.
"These bills aim at enhancing substantially the rights and benefits of employees. The sooner the legislation is passed by LegCo the better it would be. I sincerely hope that these bills can be enacted before the end of this legislative session," Mr Wong said.
Mr Wong was speaking after an informal meeting with LegCo members representing the various political parties, employer groups and trade unions this evening.
Mr Wong stressed that the Government was committed to improving employees' rights and benefits in a way "which is commensurate with Hong Kong's pace of social and economic developments and which strikes a reasonable balance between the interests of the employers and employees."
"Since the commencement of the 1995/96 legislative session in October 1995, the Government has introduced a total of 23 legislative items on labour matters into the LegCo. Up to now, 17 have been enacted, and six are still being considered by the Council. Of these six, apart from the Bill on Occupational Safety and Health, all the remaining five bills have yet been examined by the Council," Mr Wong said.
Two of them are on improvements to maternity protection provisions, definition of wages and protection of wage payments. They were introduced into LegCo last May but have not been examined by the Council since.
The other three seek to give effect to the results of the review of the labour relations system and to strengthen protection of employees against unreasonable termination of employment and variation of employment contracts. They were introduced concurrently into the LegCo on March 19.
Mr Wong appealed to legislators to accord priority to these Government Bills before the end of the current legislative session, as they all sought to give effect to improvement proposals which had been endorsed by the Labour Advisory Board (LAB).