Pay deal for laid-off restaurant workers

About 50 workers laid off from the Lung Mun Restaurant will get two months of unpaid wages after they reached an agreement with the restaurant operator yesterday.

Poon Man-hon, organising secretary of the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions, said the operator promised to pay $400,000 to workers after an hour-long meeting.

The employer offered each of the workers cheques yesterday to settle $230,000 in outstanding wages and promised to pay the rest of their wages on August 30 and September 15.

Mr Poon said that if the wages cheques were not honoured, further action against the restaurant owner would be considered.

Mr Poon said that when staff accused the owner of opening another restaurant while not paying them, he had said he had no money and invited a check of his finances.

'The operator did not explain why he had money all of a sudden for settling the unpaid wages, and we did not go into details about his source of money during the meeting. We just wanted to make sure the workers could reclaim their money,' Mr Poon said.