The minimum wage law, enacted in July, will soon be finalised. But who would have expected a member of the Provisional Minimum Wage Commission, tasked with advising the chief executive on the initial statutory minimum wage rate, to do something that could sabotage the scheme?
In order to lessen the impact of the new law on his company, Cafe de Coral chairman Michael Chan Yue-kwong proposed raising workers' pay only if they gave up their right to a paid lunch break.
How ingenious! Was Chan trying to demonstrate how to be the meanest bullying boss? Or was he trying to say that where there's a will, there's a way?
Many companies in Hong Kong, especially those in the catering sector, pay workers for their meal time.
To make things worse, Secretary for Labour and Welfare Matthew Cheung Kin-chung initially defended Chan, saying the company had not broken any law because there is no statutory requirement that employers pay staff for the time they spend on their meal breaks. Therefore, he said, the government could not step in.
As the ultimate defender of labour rights, Cheung should have done a lot more than simply regurgitate the law.