End discriminatory policies towards migrant domestic workers
Rob Connelly says balance is too skewed in favour of employers' rights
What would you think of a law that penalised you for changing your employer? What if you had paid the majority of the costs of your recruitment to an agency and were now being told that to resign would be unfair to your employer? Why do we countenance such discriminatory administrative policies towards migrant domestic workers, or foreign domestic helpers, as they are known to the government?
The job-hopping myth - that these women exploit the rules for cash - has been trotted out again recently to justify the discriminatory and punitive immigration policies towards migrant domestic workers. It's time to look at the facts.
Workers who terminate their employment contracts prematurely are not entitled to severance pay under the Employment Ordinance. They will only receive any outstanding salary for the period worked and return passage home. A worker who has no grounds to terminate the contract summarily has to give a month's notice or pay a month's wages in lieu of notice.
After terminating her contract, the worker has 14 days to find a new employer, at the end of which she has to leave Hong Kong, whether or not a new employer has been found. She will suffer loss of income for four to six weeks while waiting for the new visa, or even longer if she did not find an employer.
The economic case for job-hopping does not exist, and the suggestion that workers do so for the value of a one-way budget air ticket is laughable.
All the two-week rule does is penalise those workers who seek to leave bad employment situations by denying them freedom of contract. It creates a system of debt-bondage and servitude in the case of those still repaying high agency fees. This increases their vulnerability to excessive working hours and denial of rest days, inadequate accommodation, and even verbal, physical and sexual abuse.
Victims of abuse who remain in Hong Kong to pursue legal remedies are then further victimised by an immigration policy that effectively prevents them from changing employer until the action is concluded. Facing loss of income for six months or more and reliant on charities for food and overcrowded accommodation, many do not file a claim at all and those who do are often forced into early settlements.