Editorial : Empty words on riding out hardship together
文章日期:2020年5月28日

【明報專訊】AT A TIME when all sorts of businesses are facing hardships and the unemployment rate is on the rise in Hong Kong, the pay adjustment arrangement for the city's 180,000 civil servants has become an issue of great concern. The Hong Kong Chinese Civil Servants' Association (HKCCSA), the largest civil service union in the city, has suggested a three-year wage freeze for the entire civil service starting from this year but several prerequisites are also laid down in the proposal, including a two-year pause of the pay trend survey from next year onwards. In the face of internal and external adversities, Hong Kong's economy is unlikely to recover for a certain period of time. Any arrangement that allows a "pay rise despite the pandemic" for civil servants is unreasonable and will hardly be accepted by the public. The proposal of a wage freeze for three years appears to show a willingness to "ride out the hard times together" on the surface, but it is in essence a strategy for making gains tomorrow by making concessions today — an attempt to avoid salary cuts that would be based on the pay trend survey over the next two years. The public expect civil servants to ride out the hard times with them sincerely. If civil servants want to stop the pay trend survey whenever the survey puts them at a disadvantage, that will inevitably leave the public with an impression that they agree to our system only when it favours them, but will oppose it when it does not.

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