The Employment Ordinance should be amended so employees isolated for public health reasons may be entitled to paid sick leave, law lecturer Anthony Law has suggested.
Mr Law, of the Li Ka Shing Institute of Professional and Continuing Education of the Open University of Hong Kong, echoed similar calls made by the Law Society at the peak of the Sars epidemic.
In an article in this month's Hong Kong Lawyer, Mr Law said employers owed a duty of care to their employees under common law.
As there is no provision in the Employment Ordinance for paid leave in the case of quarantined employees, the law needed to be amended to make it more relevant to situations that may arise in the event of another outbreak.
'Although the Department of Health has issued directions to the employers that affected employees ought to be entitled to paid sick leave during the period of their isolation, they are government policies and not laws,' he wrote. 'The Law Society has already argued that the Employment Ordinance should be amended to give effect to the above as a transitory measure. I agree. After all the isolation of the employees is not caused by any fault of the employee.'
Employees who need special protection, such as pregnant women, including pregnant medical staff, cannot be forced to work in places that may endanger their pregnancy, he wrote.
