HONG KONG (SE): A recent survey, released by the Hong Kong Catholic Commission for Labour Affairs during an online press conference on April 2, showed that the protections afforded to security personnel in the midst of the Covid-19 coronavirus (SARS-Cov-2) pandemic are seriously deficient even though they come into contact with many people and clean areas with a high risk of carrying the virus.
Moreover, the Anti-Epidemic Hardship Allowance initiated by the government might not be available to them as their employers are not eager to help them make the applications for it.
The Labour Commission interviewed a total of 108 security personnel between March 20 and 27. Among them, over 74 per cent said they were required to wear masks at work, but over 55 per cent said employers did not provide them with any masks. As for those who were given masks, almost 70 per cent said they were not given one per day on average.
Sin Chi-man, assistant programme officer of the Diocesan Pastoral Centre for Workers-Kowloon, said he knew that many security personnel tended to use the same mask for a few days, or some even for half a month. He also heard that some tried to sterilise their masks by steaming them in order to reuse them later.
The commission also cited the case of a security officer, whose name was given as Wah, who did substitute work in commercial and residential buildings all over Hong Kong. His working hours per day can reach 15 hours. He said his employer had only given him five masks. So he had to buy masks on his own despite their high price and he needed to keep checking if there were any masks donated by welfare groups.
Wah said his workload during the pandemic had increased substantially and that every two hours, he had to wipe down the buttons of the elevators, door handles, as well as his walkie-talkie. He also needed to spray steriliser on the carpets.
He noted that came into contact with many people each day such as delivery people, decoration and maintenance workers, visitors and people returning from foreign countries who came with their luggage. He worried that both he and his family could become infected.
The government launched an Anti-Epidemic Hardship Allowance in February to help cleaning workers and security personnel working in residential properties and frontline workers. Six employees working for a building can each receive a monthly allowance of $1,000 for four months.
Wah said that he had asked his employer as to whether he could make an application for the allowance on his behalf. At first, he was told by the management that he was not entitled to it as he was not a permanent employee. But he then heard from the Property Management Services Authority that the scheme was applicable to all frontline workers.
Although he approached the management again, he has not received any reply to his queries.
Wah was also baffled that his friends working in factory buildings were not covered by the support scheme. “We are all security personnel doing the same jobs. Why should there be differences?” he asked.
Wah believes a better application procedure would allow employees to fill in the application form themselves and pass them to the employers to verify and sign.
The survey showed that less than one third of the interviewees were informed by their employers that they had made the application for the allowance. No one had received any allowance yet.
The commission believes that as applying for the allowance depended on the employer, many employees might not benefit from the allowance.
The commission also believes that the support scheme should cover different kinds of buildings as it was only applicable to private residential and composite (residential and commercial) buildings.
The number of properties with approved subsidies was only 268 as of March 31, which was far from the target of 33,000 buildings set by the government.
