SOGO fines workers for being 90 minutes late after T10

[pin]

Hong Kong SOGO criticized for inflexible late policy｜Society｜News｜WantChinaTimes. com

[gilleshk]

1000$ for being late? That's insane and makes no sense!!! That's probably two days pay for most people working there so you might as well not show up and claim sickness. Unbelievable that this practice is legal, I hate unions but it's easier to understand why they can be important when employers are like that.

[Swell]

It's not an actual fine per se, but its the cash incentives for being on time that are withheld. Supposedly $400 if punctual for a whole month, and then upto another $600 for 3 consecutive months.

I believe Sogo should show flexiibility on this since it took quite some time until all public transport resumed normal operations.

[HowardCoombs]

1000$ for being late?

Something is fishy.
1) The story says "employees are fined 1,000 yuan"; I doubt SOGO is handing out fines in yuan.
2) The fine has not been levied but happens to be in the books. There are lots of dumb rules in many countries that are obsolete and are not enforced.

I think we are not getting the full story.

[Dreadnought]

It's not an actual fine per se, but its the cash incentives for being on time that are withheld. Supposedly $400 if punctual for a whole month, and then upto another $600 for 3 consecutive months...

I don't get it. So if they are on time for a month they receive a sort of bonus, or incentive as you put it, of HK 400/-. If they are on time for 3 consecutive months they will be entitled to a further HKD 600/-? Therefore, if they are late past the typhoon then they miss out on all or part of their incentive and have to start from scratch. In other words they are foregoing their incentive? If so, I don't believe it is a fine.

But then the article does in fact state that this is a fine, which tells me that the HKD 1,000/- is docked from their salary at the end of the month.

So which is it?

[drumbrake]

[Dreadnought]

...1) The story says "employees are fined 1,000 yuan"; I doubt SOGO is handing out fines in yuan...

Agreed the article seems misleading.

Presumably the amount is indicated in RMB because the publication is China-focused?

Then again Swell here claims that the fine is not really a fine but merely a forfeiture of any incentive for being punctual that the employee may be due for, adding up to HKD 1,000/- at most, which is like ~RMB 820/-.

None of this adds up.

[gilleshk]

An extra cash incentive at the end of the month would make a lot more sense than a fine but it doesn't make a good headline. I wouldn't be surprised if this was just crappy reporting of the same kind that made news with the Harrow School getting money from the government and trying to tie that in with some government corruption.

[Dreadnought]

I have to say though, this would seem rather typical of the kind of crap that employers in Hong Kong can, and sometimes do, get away with.

[gilleshk]

There certainly are practices that are hard to believe from employers in HK. I remember my disbelief when I heard that when government employee take more than 12 consecutive working day holiday then all the non working days(weekends) from the start get counted so three weeks holiday end up being 21 days instead of 15.