A new standard employment contract for use by government service contractors (excluding construction service contracts) in their employment of non-skilled workers comes into effect today.

It is a mandatory condition to adopt the standard employment contract on all tenders for the relevant government service contracts invited from now on.

The Labour Department says the standard employment contract requires contractors to set out clearly the monthly wages, working hours, rest days, method of wage payment, employment terms and conditions, to better protect the rights and benefits of non-skilled workers engaged by government service contracts.

The department will step up inspections to ensure compliance with the provisions of the Employment Ordinance. The size of the Labour Inspection team has been tripled from six to 18 for this purpose.

The department warned any contractor of relevant government service contracts who has failed to use the standard employment contract will be in breach of his contractual obligation under the demerit point system.

Under the demerit point system, a default notice will be issued to a contractor for each breach of contractual obligations in respect of wages, working hours and signed written standard employment contract with its employees.

Each default notice will attract a demerit point. If during the four most recent quarters before the tender closing date, the tenderer has received from one or more government departments a total of six demerit points, the tender offer should not be considered.

For breaches of other terms and conditions in the standard employment contract not in connection with the law, wages and working hours and signed written standard employment contract, individual procuring departments will issue default notices to the contractors in accordance with the terms of the service contracts.