A Citybus staff union has announced its plans to perform a legal action against the Hong Kong transport operator. This is primarily targeted to a policy that would deduct the year-end bonus of drivers taking more sick leaves.
The chairman of Citybus Employees Union, Henry Hui Hon-kit, said that the policy is "discriminatory in nature." According to the South China Morning Post, the union is currently looking for representative cases and has every plan to sue the company for violating the discrimination law.
Citybus and New World First Bus are both under the umbrella of NWS Holdings. The move came despite the two companies announcing their plans on Tuesday to raise salaries of at least 5 percent for staff from January 1 this year retroactively.
This means that all frontline staff and full-time bus drivers can expect a minimum wage increase of about HK$1,100. As for the new drivers, they will see a rise in basic salary of 7.2 percent.
"With the year-end special bonus, on average a newly recruited driver can earn about HK$22,986 (US$2,930) monthly," the bus operators said in a statement.
In hopes of increasing staff welfare, the companies said the annual special bonus for employees that amount to a month's salary would not take into account work performance. Meanwhile, age restrictions would be removed for free bus passes given to family members of their employees.
For Hui, however, the pay rise does not necessarily solve the issue. It still fell short of the union's expectation of at least HK$18,000 in basic monthly salary, with the adjustments only taking the mark to about HK$16,500.
It is worth noting that this is not the first time both companies had issues involving sick leave. In a report from Hong Kong Free Press, a driver was fired after being suspected of falsely claiming sick leaves over a one-year period.
In 2017, Citybus and New World First Bus recorded a profit of HK$84 million and HK$77 million, respectively.
