Hong Kong: after 36 days, bar benders' strike ends

The 36-day bar benders' strike ended last night when, by a show of hands in the street, striking workers unanimously agreed to support the deal worked out by their representatives with employers: a daily wage of HK$860 and an eight-hour working day.

According to extensive, generally sympathetic coverage in SCMP (behind paywall, no link), the employers also agreed to the bar bender's demands for a review of the salary package in March 2008.

The bar benders -- they work on the steel frames which form the skeletons of high-rise buildings -- had previously worked a nine-hour day for a daily rate of between HK$800 to HK$850, down from the 1994 daily rate of HK$950.

So now, instead of working nine hours and getting eight fifty, the bar benders will be working eight and getting eight sixty. OK, this falls short of their demand for eight and nine fifty, but sometimes you have to know when to fold your cards and walk away. There is a time to start a strike, and a time to end it. This was the time to end it. Working eight hours a day is better than working nine. Plus, overtime, if there is any, kicks in earlier.

This was the longest strike in Hong Kong in thirty years and as well as general coverage at the strike's conclusion, SCMP focused on one of the strikers: "Strain of epic tussle reduces hardened iron man to tears".

Mr Wong Wai-man (50) has been a bar bender for thirty years. Married with two sons (the eldest is a university student, the youngest still at school), Mr Wong did not even finish primary school. Interviewed by SCMP reporter Agnes Lam, he said:

"Most workers have very little education, like me. I have really learnt a lot during this labour movement, such as how to answer reporter's questions and how to bargain with contractors.

We are no longer working as individuals. We are a group and we are united. Whatever comes from the negotiation table does not really matter. Unity is the most precious thing we have won."

Other lessons learned? The pro-democracy Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions (CTU) raised money for the striking bar benders and actively supported them. According to SCMP, CTU has vowed to continue helping the bar benders build a stronger union. The pro-Beijing Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions (FTU) which "represented" the bar benders at talks, was accused by bar benders on the last night of the strike of "betrayal" and only showing up for talks with the employers.

Hong Kong: bar benders strike about to enter second month

Hong Kong's longest running strike in thirty years is today entering its second month.

Late last week, it was reported that representatives of the striking workers -- the bar benders who put together the steel frames required in the construction of high-rise buildings -- lowered their demand to $HK900 for a day's work.

That's down from the initial demand of a day rate of HK$950 (the latter figure is ten dollars more than the day rate in 1994).

But they still stuck out for an eight-hour day. They currently work a nine-hour day from 8am to 6pm, with short breaks in the morning and afternoon as well as a break for lunch.

Last Friday, the bosses' organization -- Hong Kong Contractors' Association -- which had offered to raise the construction site metal workers' daily wage from HK$850 to HK$875 . . . withdrew their offer.

And then everybody walked away.

According to legislator and general secretary of Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions Lee Cheuk-yan, the emergency fund set up by CTU in aid of the strikers has reached HK$600,000, and HK$300,000 has been distributed among 993 workers.

The main site affected is one in To Kwa Wan in Kowloon. Meantime, flying pickets composed of 12-20 strikers at construction sites in Oil Street, North Point, and in Shatin, were this week met by large police presences (100 at the Shatin site).

So, where are we? The bosses have walked away from negotiations and are in no hurry to re-start. Plainly, they have decided to starve the strikers into submission.

We'll see.

Elsewhere, Angela Lam comments:

Whilst the immediate problem concerns the workers’ pay, it actually goes right up the chain. When there are few projects going round but many contractors to compete for them, bid prices go down to a level where some try to win a job at a loss, hoping to make up for it later by submitting claims for this and that. This is neither good for the contractors/workers’ sustainability nor the quality of the completed projects.

Is there any solution?

For her solution and some perspective: Sustainable Building in Hong Kong

Hong Kong: bar benders strike longest industrial action in 30 years

Hong Kong's six to eight hundred bar benders -- those are the guys who along with the welders assemble on site the girders which make possible all those high-rise buildings -- are now in their 23rd day of strike action. This is the longest such action in Hong Kong in thirty years.

The strike has now spread to around 100 construction sites -- up from 60 last week.

According to reports, members of the community, including Cathay Pacific flight attendants, have donated money, fruit and bottles of distilled water. A fund set up to help the strikers has already reached HK$360,000.

The strike pits employees against bosses. Nothing new there.

But a little bit of history might help: in 1997, the pro-Beijing Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions (FTU) negotiated pay cuts down from a daily wage of HK$1,200 to the grand sums of between HK$500 and HK$800 a day.

Now, ten years later, the pro-democracy labour group Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions (CTU) has got behind a workers' campaign for a pay rise: a uniform daily wage of HK$950 (that's the same rate as paid in 1994).

Plus a cut in working hours from nine to eight hours. Plus backing Nepalese construction workers who are calling for equal pay, saying their HK$450 daily pay is discriminatory. Which it is.

The two union groups have been competing to represent the interests of the striking workers. Meanwhile, the Government is desperately trying not to get involved. And the employers' representative group, the Hong Kong Construction Association? It says there isn't the money for a HK$950 daily rate. But they would say that, wouldn't they?

Anyway, to put some flesh on those numbers . . . a poem by Mr. Xin, a metal worker:

My wrath is on government-business collusion,
As we laborers toil through sweltering heat and fierce rainstorms.
Our deeds are done on dusty sites and we often work right into the night.

For the rest of Mr. Xin's poem and its literary antecedents: Alice Poon