Hong Kong hotels accused of not paying minimum wage in job 'trial periods'

Hotel bosses are dodging the minimum-wage law by forcing room cleaners to work for "trial periods" for low pay rates and without overtime compensation, according to a union survey.

The Catering and Hotels Industries Employees' General Union found after interviewing 246 room attendants from about 30 hotels in June that 25 workers were receiving less than the statutory minimum wage of HK$28 an hour.

Some said they were exploited under a work "trial period" in the first two to three weeks of a new job, often earning as little as HK$5 an hour. Hotels were also accused of practices which cheated employees of their benefits.

"We don't think this problem is restricted to individual hotels - it's industry-wide," said the union's organising secretary Suzanne Wu Sui-shan.

She said some workers who experienced these practices worked for large hotel chains, which they did not name to protect other employees.

The union found that one of the hotels, owned by a tycoon, kept employing workers on a trial basis and did not offer them permanent jobs.

"It's not that they cannot afford to pay, they are explicitly exploiting workers," Wu said. She said the problem had been around for a long time, but after implementation of the minimum-wage legislation in May last year, these employers could now be breaking the law.