Unionist lawmaker Lam Chun-sing has welcomed the government’s proposal to offer statutory work injury compensation for platform workers, saying it will offer them greater protection.

The plan would cover gig workers, including those providing food and goods delivery services, and require platforms to shoulder liability in case of accidents.

Lam, who heads the Federation of Hong Kong and Kowloon Labour Unions, said the government and platform operators could come up with a calculation method that ensures that the compensation is apportioned in a fair manner.

“For example, whether it depends on their platform company, the size of the platform company, how many delivery workers they [have] employed, and also the market share of different platform companies, so that it’s may [be] much more fair for different sizes of platform companies,” he said.

While authorities have yet to decide for how long the compensation period would last, Lam said they can take reference from the existing Employees’ Compensation Ordinance that offers compensation of up to two years.

“Some of the delivery workers, there may be some serious accidents, serious cases, they need to rest for a long time, maybe more than one year to recover. We hope that can provide backup protection for them.”

The government said it has no plans to include occupational diseases due to the current lack of basis for considering and determining whether there is any specific type of disease that is attributable to platform work performed, but Lam said there is a need to expand the coverage, given that some workers who need to carry heavy items for a long period of time risk suffering hand-related diseases.

The Legco manpower panel is set to discuss the plan on Friday.


Edited by Edmond Fong