Firms oppose equality watchdog's plan to grant benefits to civil partners
Companies may scrap or reduce staff welfare if equality watchdog's proposal is accepted
Forty small and medium-sized firms are threatening to scrap or cut their staff's dependent care benefits if the government approves the equality watchdog's plan to grant de facto couples entitlement to employment and health benefits.
The proposal is one of those the commission has put forward for a three-month public consultation that began on July 8, that aims to widen the definition of marital status to include couples in cohabitation.
"Such a proposal, if passed, would have a crushing effect on employers, who would be forced to give … benefits for fear of prosecution, even if they are against cohabitation," Family School Sodo Concern Group convenor Roger Wong Wai-ming said.
De facto relationships - also known as civil unions or common-law partnerships in some countries - refer to the cohabitation status of both heterosexual and homosexual couples.
The concern groups yesterday said they had contacted about six chambers of commerce, including the All-China Federation of Trade Unions and the Hong Kong General Chamber of Small and Medium Business, and that 40 small and medium-sized companies so far had voiced their opposition to the equality watchdog's proposal.
"All of the 40 companies that have replied [to] us said there was no way they could bear the extra costs of supporting de facto spouses of their employees without resorting to scrapping or reducing dependent care benefits," Ban Gay Marriage vice-convenor Rebecca Kallioniemi.
The groups also raised fears of being stripped of their rights to free speech and education, as they could face prosecution for promoting anti-homosexual views in public.
Commission chief Dr York Chow Yat-ngok "has told me anyone holding a placard calling homosexuality unethical would have committed an offence, and that school principals would not be allowed to instil in their pupils the notion that homosexuality is unethical," Wong said.
