Hong Kong gets pay law

HONG KONG – Hong Kong passed its first minimum wage law Saturday, a rare departure from the wealthy Chinese financial hub’s free-market philosophy. The move was hailed by union workers as a victory for the territory’s underpaid working class.

No rate has yet been set, but it appears employers will be required to pay at least $3 an hour – well short of the $7.25 guaranteed to workers in the U.S. and the $9 in the United Kingdom and low for one of the most expensive cities in the world.

Thousands of foreign live-in domestic workers also will be excluded from the deal.

But legislator and union organizer Lee Cheuk-yan said it was symbolic, showing that the city was saying “goodbye to shameful wages and embraced social justice for workers.”

“This means goodbye to unfettered capitalism,” he said.

China decided to preserve Hong Kong’s capitalist system when Britain returned the territory in 1997. The Beijing-appointed government continued to resist a minimum wage in the name of keeping labor markets free.

But under pressure to address the city’s widening rich-poor gap after a voluntary wage protection initiative failed, leader Donald Tsang in 2008 reversed government policy and started efforts to introduce a minimum wage.

Although he praised the wage law, Lee said it is highly limited, leaving much discretion in the hands of the territory’s leader, who is traditionally allied with the business community.

The Hong Kong leader is empowered to recommend a minimum wage level, which the legislature can approve or reject but can’t amend. Once the level is set, the law requires the wage level to be reviewed every two years.

The Hong Kong administration excluded the nearly 280,000 mostly Filipino and Indonesian domestic workers on the grounds that it is difficult to calculate their work hours given the round-the-clock nature of their jobs, also noting they are promised benefits like housing, food, medical care and free travel to their home countries.