Foreign domestic helpers fear they may be left out in Hong Kong's first law on working hours as a government adviser tasked with studying its enactment admit they have never talked about including maids throughout more than 2-1/2 years of discussion. And now, the standard working hours committee, set up in April 2013 to deliberate if and how working hours should be regulated, is near the end of its term in the first quarter of next year - with the deadline looming to submit its report to the government. Most union representatives advocate 40 to 44 regular working hours per week for Hongkongers and overtime wages at 1.5 times the hourly rate. Chau Siu-chung, a unionist and employee representative on the committee, told the South China Morning Post the members had never discussed if the law should cover foreign domestic helpers. "It could be difficult to calculate their working hours because of the job nature," he said. "I do think they should be included." In Canada, not only are helpers paid local rates, their hours are also regulated. The legislative issue split two major helpers' groups in the city, with United Filipinos in Hong Kong saying that applying the law to locals only would signal "clear discrimination". Dolores Balladares Pelaez, the group's chairwoman, said: "Domestic workers work 12 to 15 hours a day." "We're also workers in Hong Kong. Just because we are from other countries does not mean we should be excluded." But Betty Yung Ma Shan-yee, chairwoman of the Employers of Domestic Helpers Association, backed an exclusion. The difficulty in calculating helpers' working hours could give rise to disputes with their employers, Yung said. Bosses might hire part-time local workers as a result to avoid trouble. "How can you be sure of what the helpers are doing after they send the employers' children to school? What if they take up illegal work?" she asked. From a legal viewpoint, Kelley Loper, director of the University of Hong Kong's master of laws in human rights programme, said she could not think of a legitimate objective for an exclusion. According to the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families, migrant workers "shall enjoy treatment not less favourable" than the locals enjoy in employment. This UN treaty also states other conditions of work, including overtime, hours of work, weekly rest and holidays with pay, should be no less favourable than what the locals enjoy. So far, 48 states have ratified this treaty. China and Hong Kong have not, although the city is home to about 336,000 maids. Loper's colleague at the law faculty, labour law expert Professor Rick Glofcheski, said the government already had a "poor excuse" for not extending the minimum wage law to helpers. "One reason … was because of the long and ostensibly uncertain working hours of [the helpers]," he said. "This is the very reason why they should be protected."
