The Anti-Unemployment and Poverty Alliance held a demonstration at the
SAR government headquarters in Central on January 24, 1999 to protest
against the collusion of the government and the business sector in depriving
the workers' right to strike. The demonstrators presented an effigy to the
government symbolizing the workers who suicided recently because of
losing their jobs. They claimed that it is the collusion of the government and
the business sector that led to the rising unemployment.
Spokesman of the Alliance, Leung Kwok-hung, said the government has
failed to provide any concrete solution to the rising unemployment. The
latest unemployment rate of Hong Kong is 5.8%, the highest in two
decades, and the number of jobless exceeded 200,000. Many economists
expect the unemployment rate will climb to 6% or even higher in the second
quarter of this year. Leung argued the SAR government is colluding with the
business sector in depriving the workers' right to strike.
Unionist legislator Chan Wing-chan tabled a bill on January 20 for the
protection of the workers' right to strike on January 20. Chan noted that
while article 27 of the Basic Law provides that " Hong Kong residents shall
have freedom of speech, of the press and of publication; freedom of
association, of assembly, of procession and of demonstration; and the right
and freedom to form and join trade unions, and to strike", exisiting
ordinances allow the employers to fire their employees when the latter are
participating in strikes. Chan argues the ordinances are against the Basic
Law and have to be amended accordingly. The SAR government,
however, insisted that it has no intention of providing legal protection to
workers in strike. Chan's bill was then vetoed in the two-group voting
system, as most of the legislators of the functional constituencies group are
against the amendment.
The Anti-Unemployment and Poverty Alliance reiterated 5 demands in the
protest:
1) setting up unemployment funds for the jobless;
2) setting up a lowest wage and highest working hours system;
3) restore the legal right of collective bargaining;
4) expedite the building of public housing and the provision of social services so as to
increase job opportunities; and
5) stop the cuts on social welfare expenditure.
The SAR government sent a policeman to receive the demonstrators' protest letter but
refused to accept the effigy.
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