Do Hong Kong's work-from-home employees get a day off when typhoon signal No 8 is in force?
- The warning signal has long been seen as an official approval for workers to stop work and go home
- But there are no official guidelines yet on whether employees working from home should continue to do so amid the raised alert
A debate over whether work-from-home employees should be allowed a day off has erupted as Severe Tropical Storm Higos raised the city’s first typhoon signal No 8 this year – an alert long taken as official approval to stop work and go home.
In the absence of set guidelines or a precedent, the “grey area” could become a new trigger point for more labour disputes, with employees expected to work from home during the Covid-19 pandemic, warned unionist legislator Luk Chung-hung, who called on authorities to provide clarification.
But pro-business lawmaker Felix Chung Kwok-pan dismissed the warning, saying: “The unionists have a penchant for making a fuss over everything.”
In Hong Kong, it has become the norm for workers to call it a day and go home if a No 8 typhoon signal is issued by the Observatory. The Labour Department’s Code of Practice in Times of Typhoons and Rainstorms also says that bosses should allow workers to leave office once the Observatory’s advance alert of a No 8 signal is issued – usually some two hours beforehand.
The code also asks employers to be “considerate, sympathetic and flexible” in handling work resumption arrangements, allowing sufficient time for staff to get back to office after the No 8 signal is lowered.