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Owners' corporations and committees commended for joining Wage Protection Movement
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    The Labour Department today (March 29) organised the "Wage Protection Movement Commendation Ceremony cum Exhibition on Employment Ordinance" to extend its gratitude to owners' corporations and owners' committees that had participated in the Wage Protection Movement (WPM) for cleaning workers and security guards.

    Speaking at the ceremony, Permanent Secretary for Labour and Welfare, Mr Paul Tang, thanked corporations and committees participating in the WPM.  He said that while these groups were managing different kinds of buildings, they all shared the common ground of showing willingness to shoulder social responsibility by offering reasonable wages and clear employees' protection to cleaning workers and security guards hired directly by them or indirectly through sub-contractors.

    Mr Tang said the support of such corporations and committees would be the key to the success of the WPM, as at present 28,000 out of about 39,000 private buildings had their owners' corporations or committees in place. As such, he said, letters had been sent to more than 10,000 owners' corporations and owners' committees to appeal to them to join the WPM.

    "Since October 27, 2006, the Labour Department had been posting only vacancies for cleaning workers and security guards with wage levels not less than the market averages.  As at the end of February 2008, there were more than 4,300 relevant job vacancies posted by the Labour Department with wage levels scaled up to the relevant market averages or above. In other words, 10% of the employers posting vacancies with the Labour Department had raised the wage levels of their job offers for cleaning workers and security guards, following the department's encouragement," he said.

    Mr Tang said that the Government would continue to promote the WPM with a multi-pronged approach. He added that the Chief Executive had announced in the 2007-08 Policy Address that the Government would introduce a bill on a statutory minimum wage for cleaning workers and security guards in the 2008-09 legislative session should the WPM prove ineffective during the overall review to be conducted in October 2008.

    According to the Labour Department's figures, some 1,100 enterprises /organisations have pledged their support for the WPM since its launch by the Government in October 2006.

Ends/Saturday, March 29, 2008
Issued at HKT 16:00

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