The Link to bar contractors from outsourcing work
The Link Management said yesterday it would no longer allow its service contractors to outsource their work.
The announcement came as the city's biggest owner of shopping centres and car parks said it had signed 34 contracts with 14 service providers who will take charge of cleaning, security and maintenance at The Link's shopping centres from next month.
The three-year contracts are valued at about HK$900 million.
David Chan, deputy general manager of facilities and contract management with The Link, said the long-running practice of subcontracting would no longer be allowed.
The Link's shopping malls use 2,900 cleaners, security guards and repair workers. Most of them are hired by sub-contractors and do not have a direct employment relationship with The Link's nine major contractors.
'We hope this can help us improve our service, shorten the distance between the management and frontline staff and eliminate potential problems by removing the sub-contracts,' Mr Chan said.
A spokeswoman for The Link said the measure would also cut costs.
The Link asked all the new service providers to offer jobs to the existing workers and ensure their salaries were no lower than the level stated in the government's quarterly reports of wages and payroll statistics.
The Link Management runs 180 shopping centres and car parks on behalf of The Link real estate investment trust, which bought them from the government four years ago.
This year, security guards at The Link's car parks were told their working hours would be changed from eight to 12 hours a day and their hourly pay would be cut from HK$28 to HK$23.
Although The Link said it was a proposal by contractors, it had to call a halt to the plan due to strong protests by worker unions.
Ip Wai-ming, spokesman for the Federation of Trade Unions, said it always opposed outsourcing jobs, which he said was a way for employers to shift their responsibility.
'Sub-contracting is even worse as the workers would be exploited twice by contractors and sub-contractors,' he said.
Meanwhile, representatives for the Kwun Tong District Council submitted a petition to the Equal Opportunities Commission, urging it to investigate an accident involving a wheelchair-using mother and her daughter who fell while riding an escalator in The Link's Tak Tin Shopping Centre in Lam Tin.
The wheelchair user, surnamed Kong, said they used the escalator because the centre's only passenger lift had been closed since July for renovation.
Both the mother, 76, and her daughter, 51, suffered injuries to their backs and arms.
District councillor Wilson Or Chong-shing said 70 complaints had been received from local residents, mostly elderly and disabled people, over the lift closure.
