2013 Hong Kong dock strike

Kwai Tsing Container Terminal in 2008.

The 2013 Hong Kong dock strike is an ongoing labour strike take place at the Kwai Tsing Container Terminal It was called by the Union of Hong Kong Dockers (UHKD), the affiliate of the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions (HKCTU) on 28 March 2013, which working under contracting companies out-sourced by the Hongkong International Terminals Ltd. (HIT), subsidiary of Hutchison Port Holdings Trust (HPHT), which is owned by the city's richest man Li Ka-shing's Hutchison Whampoa Ltd (HWL). The strike workers demanded for better pay and working conditions. No agreement has met between the parties so far.

Demands

Earlier before the stirke, the dockers demanded a 12 percent pay hike, plus overtime pay at 1.5 times the basic wage in January 2013. The demand was not fulfilled.

On March 28, more than hundred dock workers, including crane operators and stevedores, went on strike inside the Kwai Tsing Container Terminal, demanding a $1.60 per hour raise. More workers have joined the action, but they were forced to set up camp outside the port after a Hong Kong court granted HIT a temporary court injunction on April 1 banning unionists and their supporters from entering any of the four Kwai Tsing container terminals.

Mr Lee, a dock worker for more than 20 years, and barely seen a rise in his income in the last 10 years. "I've been working in this industry for 20 years. There's been two adjustments both in wage reduction and increment, but the rate was very low. Basically, there's no fringe benefits, we only had paid leave in recent years. My monthly income isn't steady. I earn HK$15,000-$16,000 (US$2,000) during the high season, and less than HK$10,000 (US$1,300) for the low season. Of course, it's difficult to support a family," Lee said.

According to the strike leader, Lee Cheuk-yan, who was also the Labour Party legislator and general secretary of the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions said the checker and lashing man getting only HK$1,310 per 24 hours. They had to station in the terminal for 24 hours and work. The crane operators worked 12 hours in the crane and had to eat in the crane during working and use newspaper for toilet or urinate out windows.

The workers demanded a 20% pay rise to a daily wage of HK$1,600, equivalent to a monthly salary of HK$24,000 based on 15 working days. The organizer Chan Chiu-wai of the Confederation of Trade Unions said that dock workers were presently paid $167 per day for 24 consecutive hours of work, less that than they received in 1997. Chan said staff often work shifts of up to 72 consecutive hours during high-season. "For this work, the salary is very low, the working conditions are very poor and the hours are very long, so we are often in the position of being understaffed and the workers have to work many hours overtime," Chan added.

"They've cheated us for many years," said Tam Chung-ming, a crane operator for Global Stevedoring Service, one of the contractors embroiled in the dispute. "We are overworked, not given enough rest time, and we don't have proper toilet breaks. We have to shit in newspapers in our cranes."

HIT dismissed claims that workers were being paid less now than they were in 1997. "It's also wrong that their pay is now lower than in 1997 or during SARS," HIT general manager Gerry Yim Lui-fai told the South China Morning Post.

Negotiations

The HIT refused to negotiate with the workers since the HIT employs workers through a number of contractors, saying it should be resolved by subcontractors who supply workers to the berths it operates.

The first meeting between the Union of Hong Kong Dockers and contractors were held under the mediation of the Labour Department on 10 April but broke off without any immediate progress.

The representative of the Beijing-loyalist Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions (FTU) which did not join the strike and the rival union of the pro-democratic Confederation of Trade Unions said they would only look for a 12-percent rise, compared to the 23 percent increase demanded by the Confederation of Trade Unions as they claimed.

A second round of talks between striking dock workers and the contractors ended without agreement on 11 April, but both sides said they would consider each other's proposals. The Union of Hong Kong Dockers' Stanley Ho said he was hopeful there would be a breakthrough in further meetings. The Labour Department has been mediating the talks, and Melody Luk - a chief labour officer for labour relations - said yesterday's meeting had been more useful than the first day of talks.

Another negotiation failed to reach agreement on 12 April. The two unions present at the meeting were the Federation of Trade Unions, whose members are not on strike, and the Federation of Hong Kong and Kowloon Labour Unions, representing the Hong Kong Docks and Ports Industry Unions whose 300 workers are employed directly by the port operator, HIT, and who were staging a work-to-rule. The FTU says it will not accept a five-percent pay-rise and a two-percent increase in welfare benefits. The two unions have said they want 12-percent.

On 17 April, another round of talks between striking dock workers and the employers have made little progress as the contractors rejected the 23-percent wage increase demanded by the Confederation of Trade Unions and stood firm of their seven-percent pay rise proposal.

Escalation

After the talks on 17 April, the CTU members escalated their industrial action by setting up camp outside the Cheung Kong Center, the headquarters of tycoon Li Ka-shing, the owner of the Hutchison Whampoa Group.

The next day after the escalation, a contractor affected by the strike announced it is closing down in June because of what it calls "an inability ... to continue its operations". In a statement, the contractor said nearly three-quarters of its staff had joined the strike and it could not afford the 20-percent pay rise demanded by the workers.

Strike consequences

The unions say the striking workers account for some 30%-40% of dock employees serving Hutchison's terminals in the city. HIT said the strike is costing it 5 million Hong Kong dollars (US$644,000) in daily losses. The Hong Kong Association of Freight Forwarding and Logistics estimates 120,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) have stacked up during the strike on 10 April 2013.

An executive at a major Japanese shipping line, who declined to be named, said that the company's cargo traffic via Hong Kong has been delayed by more than three days due to the strikes, prompting the line to consider rescheduling some of their ships to first call at other cities. "Some of our vessels may even skip calling at the Hong Kong port entirely and be rerouted to other ports if the situation persists," the person said.

Public response

Protestors gathered at the Victoria Park, Hong Kong in the afternoon on 7 April.

The workers have attracted many supporters among student unions and pro-democracy parties in Hong Kong. The Hong Kong Federation of Students have organized donation and supply collection points outside major train stations. Hong Kong's pro-democracy Labour Party is also supporting the strike, in which the party's Chairman Lee Cheuk-yan is also the leader of the Confederation of Trade Unions and organizer of the strike.

"We have raised HK$1.2 million ($154,000) so far to support the workers and we are paying them (HK)$1,000 a day during the strike," said Lee Cheuk-yan. "We have also just gained the support of the International Trade Union Confederation and it's a very encouraging development. We are confident the strike will not be easily displaced." By 16 April 2013, union's fund has hit US$645,000, able to provide lost wages to their union members only for about the next 10 days.

On 7 April, thousands of protesters marched through downtown Hong Kong, carrying photographs of Li Ka-shing's defaced with devil's horns and the Chinese character for "shameless" written across his forehead. Organizers estimated that 4,000 demonstrators turned out Sunday, while police put the figure at 2,800 at its peak.

Separately, the pro-business Liberal Party's youth committee chairman, Dominic Lee Tsz-king, criticised the politicisation of the dispute. "With the intervention of unions and politicians, the workers are not getting what they have been fighting for," he said.

Media coverage

The Next Magazine published on 3 April reported that the managing director of the HIT Gerry Yim Lui-fai, who earlier said that the workers should negotiate with the contractors but not HIT refused to involve in the dispute, was a board member of one of the contractors involved in the pay dispute. Yim reiterated that no members of top management of Hutchison Whampoa, Hutchison Port Holdings Trust or HIT are board members of any contractors. Yim said it was a mistake to put Sakoma—a unit of HIT previously dealt with out-sourcing contracts—on the entry passcards. Yim said the Hutchison Logistics, replacing Sakoma, is now responsible for management of out-sourcing.

On 1 April, the reporting on the strike by Television Broadcasts Limited (TVB) programme Scoop, the dominant TV channel in Hong Kong sparked controversies for its biased, misleading and did not give enough airtime to the strikers as the complainants said. The Communications Authority had received 1,800 complaints by Thursday and TVB said it had received 47 complaints from the audience, and the broadcaster had no particular stance.