Gig worker injury law reform speeds up

Officials will fine-tune proposed laws over the next two months to guarantee statutory work injury compensation for digital platform delivery workers, according to Secretary for Labour and Welfare Chris Sun.

The race to provide statutory protection for gig workers started in earnest on Friday, when the Labour and Welfare Bureau submitted a paper in the hope of introducing the legislative framework by the end of this year.

"We hope to find through legislation a middle path that allows the platform economy to continue to operate and, at the same time, its workers with clear legal protections in the event of job-related injuries or death," Sun told a TV programme on Saturday.

Under the proposed compensation mechanism, Sun said the minimum compensation in the event of deaths occurring during deliveries would be set at about HK$510,000, which is in line with the Employees' Compensation Ordinance.

With regards to job-injury compensation, a multi-layered approach may be introduced for calculation purposes, rather than periodical payments for cases involving temporary incapacities of up to 24 months, as stipulated under current laws.

For example, Sun said, if someone has been working in the industry for a relatively short period, the pay deduction rate during the period of leave for injuries suffered on the job would be higher.

Current suggestions seek payments of 80 percent of income if food-delivery workers or couriers have been on the job for longer periods leading up to their injury.

As for whether workers would be entitled to payments of up to two years, Sun said this will have to be discussed in the upcoming months.

When asked how compensation would be calculated for people registered with multiple platforms at the same time, he said if someone was injured while fulfilling an order for a operator then it would be responsible for paying compensation that would take into account the worker's income from other platforms as well.

But if the worker was delivering orders for two platforms at the same time, Sun said, then both platforms would have to share the compensation costs.

Edited by Azam Khan ...