Hong Kong’s civil service unions back salary freeze for officials

Hong Kong civil service unions are urging the government to freeze officials’ pay for another year, amid fears that the salaries of civil servants could suffer a cut this year. 

Authorities should not cut the pay of government servants as they have been on the frontlines against the fight of the pandemic, union leaders said. 

“Civil servants have been working overtime, helping at quarantine camps and with various lockdowns. Their morale needs to be maintained,” said Li Kwai-yin, president of the Hong Kong Chinese Civil Servants’ Association, reports South China Morning Post. 

Li made the call following a statement by the chairman of the Pay Trend Survey Committee, Lee Luen-fai, who said that the latest pay trend indicators for civil servants were low.

After studying salary trends in 113 local companies which employed over 145,000 workers from April 2020 to April 2021, the committee found that the pay adjustment of workers ranged from a 1% cut in the upper salary band, to a 0.49% increase in the middle band, and a 0.48% in the lower band. 

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After discounting the effect of civil service annual pay increments for seniority, workers in the upper, middle and lower salary bands could face salary cuts of 2.04%, 0.54% and 0.68% respectively, said union leaders.