CTU Wants Third Wave Of Funding To Target Workers

The chairwoman of the Confederation of Trade Unions, Carol Ng, is urging the government to come up with a third anti-epidemic relief fund to help those people who missed out on benefits in the first two rounds of subsidies.

The government has rolled out two rounds of relief measures to help struggling businesses, including handing out hundreds of thousands of dollars under its HK$137.5 billion anti-epidemic relief measure to help local establishments during the economic downturn.

However, it's ruled out jobless benefits, for people who've lost their jobs recently, and Ng said the government doesn't understand the problems facing people at the grassroots level.

She said some workers have complained that they weren't getting their full entitlement because employers were making deductions, prompting some employees to complain to the authorities, who said this was "allowable".

Ng said this was a "huge" loophole – but no one was monitoring how the money was disbursed.

She said the government was relying on the upcoming HK$10,000 cash payout to the public to revive demand.

"I think the government needs to reconsider how to redistribute more evenly and equally to those people in need," Ng said.

The government's aid measures have also been criticised by a group of restaurant owners this week who pointed out a separate loophole which allowed the money to go to people who sometimes didn't even have anything to do with the business.

They said the handouts were given to the licensees – some of whom no longer have anything to do with the businesses under their names – because the new owners of the business hadn't bothered to go through the administrative hassle of changing the names of the licensee.

The owners want the government to distribute the funds using the business registration certificates of restaurants, so that the actual operators are given the money.