Unjust Regulations 設例不公

設例不公

Several local political officials discussed new regulations for factories and hotels last Wednesday in Sydney, mandating rigorous cleaning tasks for every single factory in the city and severe penalties for non-compliance. Afterwards, they extended these rules to Chinese laundry shops and would even apply them to any of those shops with only one worker on duty. They obviously meant to bully and insult us, as any other foreign factory would only be subject to the rules if they had at least four workers on duty. However, the Chinese factory with merely one worker on duty was even targeted. What an unfair practice!

One may wonder how obstructive the consequences of this regulation can be. Specifically, the workplace sanitation inspectors used to be only allowed to enter the factories and the restrooms at the back to conduct a cursory examination, as factories did not use to be governed by the regulations. This means that a detailed inspection would only be performed if the factory was exceptionally dirty. However, once the new regulations came into force, factories would have to undergo thorough inspections of all areas of their premises. For example, the restrooms are required to be cleaned with boiled water and soap every week. Moreover, repainting the walls of the restrooms with limewater will also be a mandatory task every twelve months. Consequently, it will be truly inconvenient, if these stringent regulations still apply when many people are asleep and thus off-duty in these factories.