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| Yung held a press conference to call on government to help foot the bill for the helpers' quarantine |
New People’s Party lawmaker Eunice Yung has called on the
government to put foreign domestic workers who will be arriving over the next
few months in hotels, and help their employers pay for the cost.
Yung said more than 12,000 FDWs are expected to arrive in Hong Kong shortly, after being stranded in their home
countries for months because of travel restrictions.
This could potentially cause a huge problem as many
employers are not in a position to offer them space in their tiny homes for the
mandatory quarantine.
“If the employers wish to ask for the quarantine
arrangement, they have to pay for around $6,000 for the hotel fees, so I think
the government should step in and give subsidies to the employers,” Yung said.
She also asked the government to help pay for the costs of
testing FDWs for Covid-19, saying employers have complained about paying
between $800 to $3,000 for each test.
Her call differed slightly from a proposal announced
recently by a group of employment agencies, which urged the government to set
up a quarantine center for all arriving FDWs.
The Hong Kong Union of Employment Agencies said in a press
conference on Jun 14 that the government must act now to prepare for the influx
of thousands of helpers in the coming months.
HKUEA chairman Thomas Chan said the call was the first in a series
of activities the union was planning to get the government to act on its
proposal.
He said the centralized quarantine center should be located far
from populous areas to avoid the risk of a contagion in case anyone among the
new arrivals had the virus.
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| Agencies want the migrant workers put in a remote quarantine center like the Lady Maclehose holiday village |
There has been no response from the government so far.
In the meantime, many FDWs about to fly into Hong
Kong have been posting online about various problems they face on
their arrival, with many saying their employers are refusing to pay for all, or
some, of their quarantine expenses.
At least three had to be fed by volunteers from the Filipino
community when they appealed online for food donations, saying their employers
did not make arrangements for their meals while under quarantine, although they
did pay for their hotel rooms.
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| Pindutin para sa detalye! |
But this shouldn’t be the case.
When mandatory home quarantine was imposed on all passengers arriving in Hong Kong on Mar 19, the Labour Department
immediately made it clear that employers should open their homes to their
domestic helpers who need to self-quarantine for 14 days.
If the employers choose another
place for the quarantine such as a hotel, they should pay for the
accommodation, and provide the helper with a food allowance for her meals
during the entire 14-day stay.
The government press release said:
“The employer is also reminded to comply with his/her obligations under the SEC
(standard employment contract), including bearing the accommodation expenses of
the FDH and providing food allowance to the FDH.”
Earlier, on Mar 17, he Philippine
Overseas Labor Office issued an advisory to all employment agencies, saying the
same thing: that employers should provide for all the needs of their helpers
during the quarantine period.
