Transcript of remarks by SLW on standard working hours
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Reporter: ... standard working hours ...?
Secretary for Labour and Welfare: The labour representatives on the Labour Advisory Board as well as the three LegCo members representing the labour constituency came to see the Chief Executive and me this morning, and presented to the Chief Executive their consultation report on standard working hours. In fact, they conducted their opinion survey amongst all labour unions in Hong Kong. The Chief Executive expressed gratitude for the report and indicated that we will certainly look at it carefully. At the same time, we all know that the Standard Working Hours Committee headed by Dr the Honourable C H Leong, in fact they are entering a very crucial stage of its work - deliberation. So what we are going to do is to pass the consultation report from the labour sector to the Standard Working Hours Committee and ask them to look at the whole thing holistically. And in fact, because of that new development, their terms of office, originally set to end at the end of this month, will be extended for two months until the end of January next year to enable them to have enough time to draw up the report for submission to the Government. This morning, we also took the opportunity to once again appeal to the labour sector representatives to return to the Standard Working Hours Committee because it is a very important platform for dialogue. It is very important for all sides to sit together, look at the recommendations carefully, with a view to reaching a consensus on the way forward.
(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript.)
Ends/Wednesday, November 16, 2016
Issued at HKT 15:45
Issued at HKT 15:45
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