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    A new standard employment contract for use by contractors of government service contracts (excluding construction service contracts) in their employment of non-skilled workers comes into effect today (April 29).

    The use of the standard employment contract is a mandatory condition of contract on all tenders for the relevant government service contracts invited from now on.

    "The arrangement is to better protect the rights and benefits of non-skilled workers engaged by government service contracts," a Government spokesman said.

    The standard employment contract requires the contractors to set out clearly the monthly wages, working hours, rest days, method of wage payment, employment terms and conditions etc.  Its key features are as follows:

(a) The monthly wage payable to a non-skilled worker should be no less than the amount committed by the contractor in the relevant tender offer if he/she has worked in accordance with the working hours and working days as specified in the standard employment contract. Any allowance, under whatever title, should be paid on top of the committed monthly wage.

(b) As a control measure, with the employees' consent, all wages should be paid directly by way of autopay into the individual employee's bank account.

(c) Contractors should be responsible for the costs of all operational and administrative expenses, as well as the depreciation of all assets and equipment. No fee or deposit, under whatever title, should be collected from their non-skilled workers.

(d) The workplace should be specified. Where necessary, deployment of the worker to other workplaces within the same region should be on an ad hoc and limited basis or only under exceptional circumstances. This flexibility is to cater for special operational requirements of the procuring department.

(e) Copies of the signed standard employment contract should be kept by the contractor, the worker and the relevant procuring department for reference.

(f) Only variation of employment terms which shall not extinguish or reduce any right, benefit or protection conferred upon the employee by the contract, and has the latter's written agreement, is allowed.  

    "Any contractor of relevant government service contracts who has failed to use the standard employment contract will be in breach of his contractual obligation under the demerit point system," the spokesman said.

    Under the demerit point system, a default notice will be issued to a contractor for each breach of contractual obligations in respect of wages, working hours and signed written standard employment contract with its employees. Each default notice will attract a demerit point. If during the four most recent quarters before the tender closing date, the tenderer has received from one or more government departments a total of six demerit points, the tender offer should not be considered.

    "For breaches of other terms and conditions in the standard employment contract not in connection with the law, wages and working hours and signed written standard employment contract, individual procuring departments will issue default notices to the contractors in accordance with the terms of the service contracts. Such default notices would be taken into account when the contractors concerned bid for tenders for relevant service contracts in future," he added.

    "To tie in with the implementation of the standard employment contract, the Labour Department will enhance inspections to the workplaces of government service contractors to ensure compliance with the provisions of the Employment Ordinance. The size of the Labour Inspection team has been tripled from six to 18 for this purpose.

    "The Mandatory Provident Fund Schemes Authority has recently set up a task force to deal with serious and repetitive offenders against the Mandatory Provident Fund Schemes Ordinance, including contractors engaged in government service contracts," the spokesman said.

    "Government departments will also strengthen the monitoring of their service contractors," he added.

Ends/Friday, April 29, 2005

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