All work and no paid
Workers receive less than needed
by Emily Hui
C ompensation at dismissal is always a controversial issue between employees and em- ployers. According to the law, employers should compensate with 18 days of wages per year for their employees at dismissal.
Mr. Leung Fu-wah, director of Workers’ Rights and Benefit Committee, said, “There is a contradiction between the calculation of severance payment and salary tax. The former only includes basic wage of workers while the latter counts the total wage.”
Miss Chan Fung Mei, one of the dismissed workers of an electronics company in San Po Kong, has worked in the factory for 16 years. About 200 workers were fired. They shared a total of 17 millions as severance payment according to the Employment Ordinance.
However, the workers were very dissatisfied as the overtime payment was not included in their compensation.
She said, “This is very unfair. Our total income is counted in the tax payment. Why does the severance payment only include our basic wages?”
Explained Spokesperson of the Labour Department W.K. Lee: “Severance payment and tax are different in natures. They cannot be compared.”
As factory workers’ basic wages are rather low, they usually need to extend their working hours in order to earn more. In Miss Chan’s case, the amount is $180 per day for seven and a half hours.
Miss Chan said, “We had to work for at least four more hours each time for another $155. Sometimes, we worked until 11 p.m.”
Miss Hui Suk Nga, a co-worker of Miss Chan, said, “We worked overtime continuously throughout these years. No matter weekdays or weekends, we worked whenever the employer needed us.”
Therefore, a large proportion of their salaries comes from working overtime. Miss Chan claimed that if the overtime payment was also included in the severance and long service payments, she could get about $40,000 more.
Mr. Ng Si-long, unionist of the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions, said that this is a loophole of the law. To plug it, he suggested to set a minimum basic wage law and to count the total wages instead of the basic wages in calculating severance and long service payments.
When asked about whether legislation should be changed to include overtime payment in counting severance payment, Mr. Lee refused to say anything.
Mr. Lee said, “When workers and employers go into dispute over severance payment, the Labour Department will handle the case according to the ‘actual condition’. If the workers are forced to extend their working hours, the amount earned from these hours will not be treated as ‘actual overtime payment’. That means this amount will not be included in calculating severance payment.”
With the high rate of unemployment, the dismissed workers felt gloomy about the future.
Both Miss Chan and Miss Hui said, “We are over 40 years old already. How can we compete with the younger ones?”
They planned to change their field of work since many electronics factories have shifted to the Mainland China in recent years.
Miss Chan said, “I will do whatever job I can find. Yet, the wage will surely be much lower than the previous one even including the overtime payment.”
However, younger workers’ fates may not be much brighter than their older collegues.
Said Ms Wong, a younger dismissed worker, who only revealed her surname: “I was assigned to another factory branch originally. For unknown reasons, it turned out that it was other older workers who were assigned to that factory. And now I was dismissed.
“I have tried hard to find another job, but in vain. My colleagues also have the same fate,” she said.
