Hong Kong’s government made a renewed effort to end the longest strike at the city’s container terminal after workers at billionaire Li Ka-shing’s docks scaled back demands for a 23 percent wage increase.
The labor department invited the Union of Hong Kong Dockers to talks [Monday], where contractors of Li’s Hongkong International Terminals Ltd. will be present, employees’ union representative Wong Yu-loy said. Earlier talks aimed at defusing the four-week dispute failed after the workers rejected a 7 percent pay raise.
Suggestions that the strike is over is “nonsense” and it’s the biggest weapon for the workers to seek a fair treatment, said Ho Wai-hong, another representative of the Union of Hong Kong Dockers.
The workers are willing to drop an earlier demand of a 23 percent pay increase, Lee Cheuk-yan, the general secretary of the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions, said by phone.
“It’s open to discussions,” Lee said by phone on April 27. Workers would still want an increase in the “double digits,” he said.
About 450 dock workers, mostly crane operators and stevedores, walked out on March 28, demanding higher wages and better working conditions. Some of the strikers have also surrounded Li’s 70-story Cheung Kong Center building in the city’s Central district, spurring a court battle with Li over their right to protest.