XN000022-1973-04-13 — Page 2

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