The legislature rejected a package last week on the grounds that compensation should be extended to poultry workers, who were forced to stop working when the government culled more than 1.26 million birds to eradicate an avian flu outbreak.

Under the revised proposal, which cost HK$68 million (US$8.72 million), the government raised the ex-gratia payments and low-interest loans to poultry stall owners and dealers, who might be paid as early as next week.

Dealers would also be exempt from two months' stall rents if their workers did not file complaints against them within a month after compensation was handed out.

Yet some Legislative Council members still criticized the new package as not offering enough protection to poultry workers.

"We've already received complaint calls from workers," unionist Lee Cheuk-yan said yesterday in a Legislative Council meeting. "They said their employers threatened to sack them if they dared file any complaints."

However, Secretary for Environment and Food Lily Yam said that no mechanism would be sufficient to protect the workers if they were too afraid to complain.

Yam predicted that the chicken markets could reopen by the middle of this month.

The government completed the mass bird slaughter of chickens, pigeons and quails from local farms on Wednesday.

Agencies via Xinhua

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