Chairman's term won't give enough time to set work hours law, says legislator

The government will definitely not have enough time to legislate standard working hours if it works within the present terms it has set, a veteran labour activist says.

Labour Party lawmaker Lee Cheuk-yan yesterday criticised Labour and Welfare Secretary Matthew Cheung Kin-chung for setting the standard working hours committee chairman's term at three years. It was a form of procrastination, he said.

"Why did Cheung set it as three years instead of at one or two years? That's because the Legislative Council's present term would end exactly by that time. And Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying would have only a year left by then," Lee said.

"There would definitely not be enough time to legislate this law," Lee said.

The 24-member special committee was set up last week to look into the benefits and disadvantages of standardising working hours in Hong Kong.

The committee's chairman, Dr Leong Che-hung, said he hopes to submit a report to the government by the end of his three-year term.

During City Forum at Victoria Park yesterday, Lee cited a government report in November as saying that more than 300,000 of the city's workers did not get any overtime pay. That amounted to an annual average of HK$14.1 billion.