HK warned on migrant workers
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Indonesia said that it could impose a moratorium on sending workers to Hong Kong if China's special administrative region continued to neglect the basic rights of migrant workers in the country.
The director-general for overseas labour placement and protection at Indonesia’s Manpower and Transmigration Ministry, Reyna Usman, explained that the government would decide on the moratorium if the authority in Hong Kong, labour agencies and employers failed to honour Government Regulation No 98/2012 on the labour recruitment fee cut.
“We are waiting for Hong Kong’s response to our new policy. If the response is negative, the government will have no choice but to suspend the sending of migrant workers to Hong Kong and Macau,” she told The Jakarta Post.
The ministerial decree stipulates that a migrant worker should only pay HK$13,436 (US$1,732), instead of the current HK$24,000, before they are allowed to work in Hong Kong.
The ministerial decree imposes the recruitment fee evenly on workers and their employers. The decree stipulates that workers pay $13,436 for insurance, medical and psychological tests, passports, 110-day training and payment for Indonesian sponsors. The employer, meanwhile, pays $11,179 (to workers from Java) and $13,906 (to those from outside Java) for labour contract documents, a two-year insurance premium, medical test, working visas, plane ticket, airport tax and fees for labour agencies.
