2013 Hong Kong dock strike

Earlier before the strike, 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 28 March, some 450 crane operators and stevedores went on strike inside the Kwai Tsing Container Terminal, for better pay and conditions. 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. Workers said whilst HIT had granted increases to the contractors over the years, the latter had not passed on increases to the workers. "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." ==Negotiations and strike actions==

Hong Kong International Terminals, subsidiary of Hutchison International, operates the port with a number of directly employed staff supplemented by employees hired via four subcontractors. Subcontractors – who are not genuinely independent companies – are intermediaries used to put distance between HIT and workforce, to hold down wages and provide operational flexibility. The CTU insisted that it would refuse to talk with individual contractors, and would talk only if all the contractors were present. A second round of talks between striking dock workers and the contractors, mediated by the Labour Department, ended without agreement on 11 April, but both sides said they would consider each other's proposals. 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 insisted on 12 percent. On day 18 of the strike, Hongkong International Terminals issued a statement declaring optimism that operations were returning to normal, with "more workers returning to their posts". HIT said that the terminal was running at 86 to 90 percent handling capacity over the previous weekend. The union rejected the claim that some strikers had returned to work, saying their 450 striking colleagues had reduced terminal handling capacity to 15 containers each hour instead of 25 before the strike began. However, The Standard noted some signs of a drift back to work over the previous five days. On 17 April, another round of talks between striking dock workers and the employers made little progress as the contractors rejected the 23-percent wage increase demanded by the CTU and stood firm of their seven-percent pay rise proposal. After the talks failed on 17 April, CTU members escalated their industrial action by setting up camp outside the Cheung Kong Center, where the Hutchison Whampoa Group is headquartered. Global Stevedores, a contractor who employs fewer than 200 dock workers, However, the workers regard this closure as a move calculated to put pressure on them. HIT's advertisement in the English-language press said union demands for a 20 percent raise would "create an impact across other industries and cause irreparable damage to Hong Kong." Workers took out advertising space in Ming Pao Daily with a headline suggesting that Li Ka-shing did not really understand their situation. After 40 days of strike action, the union called an end to the dispute, having secured promises of a pay deal of 9.8 percent for all workers including non-strikers and improved working conditions. ==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 HK$5 million (US$644,000) in daily losses. According to the chairman of Hong Kong Association of Freight Forwarding and Logistics, vessels now need to queue up outside of Hong Kong port for two to four days before being able to berth; the wait was negligible just before the strike. The association estimated 120,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) have accumulated since the strike action began two weeks earlier. Although the docks are said to be operating at approximately 80 percent capacity, an insider at one major Japanese shipping line 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. Shares in Hutchison Port Holdings Trust listed on the Singapore Exchange dropped to US$0.81 on 17 April, which is the lowest since the Kwai Tsing dock strike began after research showed that the strike could have cost the port operator HK$100 million in revenue. ==Public response==

on the afternoon of 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 organised donation and supply collection points outside major train stations. ==Media coverage==

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. HIT denied this; Yim reiterated that no members of top management of Hutchison Whampoa, Hutchison Port Holdings Trust or HIT are board members of any of the contractors. Yim said that the name of Sakoma – the HIT subsidiary that previously dealt with out-sourcing contracts – still appears on the entry passcards, and acknowledged it was a mistake for that name to be there. Yim said the Hutchison Logistics, replacing Sakoma, is now responsible for management of out-sourcing. The programme Scoop on TVB, the dominant terrestrial television channel in Hong Kong, on 1 April drew criticism. The strikers objected to the programme, saying it was biased, misleading and did not give enough airtime to the strikers. The Communications Authority had received 1,800 complaints within four days and TVB said it had received 47 complaints from the audience, and the broadcaster had no particular stance. ==References==