Duties at home for the elderly leave him living 'like a bird in its cage', court hears
A welfare worker who is regularly on call overnight is asking a court to clarify whether his duties are covered by the Civil Service Regulations.
Leung Kam-keung's on-call duties at a Tsing Yi home for the elderly had left him living 'like a bird in its cage', his lawyer told the Court of First Instance yesterday.
Government counsel Daniel Wan said that if Mr Leung's family lived in a cage, it was 'a pretty good cage. It has got a TV and a mahjong set'.
The court heard Mr Leung's staff quarters were on a floor above two floors housing the home's residents. If any of them needed him overnight, an alarm would sound in his room.
Mr Leung's counsel, Chong Kai-man, told the judge, Recorder Ronny Wong Fook-hum SC, that his ruling would resolve whether or not his client could leave his quarters to go for a walk or dine with friends while he was on call.
It would also settle whether Mr Leung was entitled to time off as compensation for being confined to the 'four corners of his staff quarters whilst performing 'on-call' duty', or to overtime payments. Mr Leung's case follows a similar, unsuccessful action by 3,522 prison officers, who sought $2 billion in overtime payments for being on call overnight.