Helper's dayoff during easter holiday

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Agree! only the 5th is the holiday.

Last year, i thought ALL red letter day are day-offs, i just let her go on holiday. Beginning of this year, i read in the paper all the official holidays and was surprised that it's not all. I copied it in my calendar now.
 
According to a HK Government website(http://www.info.gov.hk/info/holiday_e.htm) the following are general public holidays.

Ching Ming Festival 5 Apr Thursday,
Good Friday 6 Apr Friday,
The day following Good Friday 7 Apr Saturday
Easter Monday 9 Apr Monday.

According to Labour Department, all employees (including Foreign Domestic Helpers) are entitled to the above statutory holidays. Any more are purely at the discretion of the employer. If the statutory holiday falls on a rest day, a holiday should be granted on the day following the rest day which is not a statutory holiday or an alternative holiday or a substituted holiday or a rest day.

http://www.labour.gov.hk/eng/public/wcp/FDHLeaflet_Eng.pdf

The 12 statutory holidays for 2007 are :

1. The first day of January (1 January)
2. The day preceding Lunar New Year's Day (17 February)
3. The second day of the Lunar New Year (19 February)
4. The third day of the Lunar New Year (20 February)
5. Ching Ming Festival (5 April)
6. Labour Day (1 May)
7. Tuen Ng Festival (19 June)
8. Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Establishment Day (1 July)
9. The day following the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival (26 September)
10. National Day (1 October)
11. Chung Yeung Festival (19 October)
12. Chinese Winter Solstice Festival (22 December) or Christmas Day (25 December) (at the option of the employer)

http://www.labour.gov.hk/eng/news/latest_holidays2007.htm
 
So basically the only holiday that domestic helpers are entitled to this Easter holiday is the Thursday April 5th.
 
that's why they call it statutory holidays & bank holidays. bank holidays are the red days on the calendar, that's when the bank closes & most white collars are off. blue collars (drivers, factory workers, service industry, domestic helpers, etc.) are entitled to stat holidays only.
 
I don't quite understand the whole problem....Is it sooo difficult to let your helper go for a few days? Is it so difficult to take care of your child or children together as parents for 5 days? Maybe yes, because there is nobody to wipe away the poo or the runny nose or to carry the bag. Come on people, it's just 5 days. The DH are working hard enough and after all, if they are Phillipinos and catholic, Easter is the highest celebration in Catholic church. Just let them celebrate it and wish them all the best!
I come from a country where it is not custom to have so much help, let alone live in and with these working hours. Hey, you know what? The mothers and fathers and, if they are lucky and are still together, the parents get the job done. Not only for 5 days.
Happy easter to all of you and enjoy your kids!!!
 
Absolutely Marta! The labour department give guidelines on areas like salary, annual vacation leave, public holidays, salary and food allowance. It's up to each employer to decide how generous they want to be above these minimum guidelines.
 
Marta, from your full on response you've clearly jumped to some strange and unfair conclusion that anyone wanting to know their legal requirements concerning their helper's holidays is a lazy parent. The question was pretty simple and I don't think there was anything in it that warranted the attack. Other people's answers saved me time so thank you to the people that answered the question.
 
My helper is a practising Catholic and I realize it is an important time of year for her, however I do not feel that I am being either a bad parent or a bad employer by giving her only the legally required days off. I suggested that she might like to work on Ching Ming and take either Saturday or Monday instead, to make a 2-day weekend, which she is happy with. I've also told her that if she would like to go to church on any of the other days then it's fine, but I would like her to come in and do some work on those days - we will fit around her schedule. She seems to be happy with the whole arrangement (as I would be if my boss was as flexible with my holidays).
 
Sometimes we are so fortunate that we forgot about needs of others -- There are a lot of working parents in HK who are in service industries, constructions, transportation etc. They are not entitled to bank holidays like most of us using this forum. Also, unlike in western countries, a lot of families in HK hire DH NOT because they have the extra few bucks to spend but because they HAVE TO otherwise they can't work and make enough money to raise kids. To some families, it is IMPORTANT that their DH observe statutory holidays.
 
We've given ours Easter Friday, but she works on Thursday which has no significance for her. At least she can go to the church on Easter Friday as it is a big day for Catholics. We can't afford to give ours extra days because we have a 6 month old, but she more than makes up for it when we are out of town a few times a year when she has nothing to do after her initial "clean up" the day we've left.
 
My helper only wanted Good Friday off... when i asked if she wanted any other days she replied" what am I gonna do for so many days??" Better for me I thought!!
Happy Easter!
 
I know a lot of people who insist that their helper's were only 'entitled' to the Thursday off. Yet these people were not working over Easter - indeed, in some cases, Mum doesn't work at all. Can anyone explain to me why an educated woman with one child and no work commitments need a full time helper 24/7, and still must be so meagre with time off?

aussiegal - It's cases like these (and I don't think they're so few as is often suggested) that mean it is important for someone to point out that giving them an extra day off here and there probably wouldn't kill you.

My personal feeling is that if some parents worked anywhere near as hard as their DHs, they would feel like they deserved more than one day off............

I fully expect to be flamed, but we all know families who work their DHs into the ground,and bitch and still whine and moan.
 
Happyv, you completely missed the point of the post. The original poster wanted to know which days she had to give her helper off. She didn't say that she was some lazy, westerner who prefered to spend the day at the hair salon than with her children. Nobody did and many clarified that they worked. And yet clearly you've chosen to interpret that and the other posts as meaning just that.

Perhaps you and the people you associate with are like that, in which case save it for them rather than having a go at women whose stories you don't know.

As for myself, I am like other women who commented on this thread. I work, in fact I run my own business which happens to be based in Australia. My staff are in Australia. Thursday was not a public holiday there and the nature of the business meant that some only got Friday off all weekend. Have a guess what that meant for me? I stole moments all day Thursday without a helper to get my work done and worked into the night (as I always do so I can spend time with my son during the day), then I did the same Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday. Sunday my helper already had off but I gave her Monday off too. Did I mention my son is 14 months old and I am 8 months pregnant now? My helper also gets to leave anytime she wants after 3pm on Saturdays (even if my husband is at the office) and doesn't come back til Monday morning. Clearly I'm just another lazy westerner you like to have a go at...

So next time you feel like adding your two cents maybe think firstly about the actual question asked in the post (i.e. she wasn't calling for you to make a judgement on her rather just some information) and then give weight to what other people actually write. Quite a few of us did mention that we work yet still you felt it ok to insult us...
 
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