Public Eye | Proof yet again that in Hong Kong the big guys always win

Standardised working hours? Forget about it. Decent, affordable homes? Get back in your boxes. Michael Chugani is not surprised there isn’t a Bill Gates among our tycoons

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Hong Kong is a city where old women sell cardboard to make ends meet while businessmen pay millions for a place to park their fancy cars. Photo: Felix Wong

Published: 5:09pm, 20 Jun 2017Updated: 12:01am, 21 Jun 2017

Game over. The big guys won. The little guys lost. As always. Get used to it, little guys. You never win.

You were blockheads to think the big guys would at least have the conscience not to plunder your pensions any longer and allow you decent working hours.

Their conscience is the size of a crumb. That’s what they allowed Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying to throw you: no standardised working hours, just overtime pay, and only for those earning HK$11,000 or less a month. That qualifies just 550,000 workers. Wait, there must be something wrong with that figure. No.

Junior hygiene officials pick on elderly ladies who scavenge cardboard boxes for a living, but traffic wardens dare not ticket the big guys for illegal parking

Hong Kong, Asia’s world city, has over half a million people who earn HK$11,000 or less a month. No one batted an eyelid when this became apparent after the government rejected standardised working hours.

Why bother when Hongkongers know they can never stop the big guys from winning. For years they banged their heads against the wall to stop bosses from plundering their MPF pensions to cover their long-service and severance pay. All they got were bruised heads.

It is so ingrained in our psyche the big guys always win that even the little guys blindly follow the rule. Junior hygiene officials pick on elderly ladies who scavenge cardboard boxes for a living, but traffic wardens dare not ticket the big guys for illegal parking.

Property tycoons are allowed to put just a small batch of new flats on the market and watch gleefully while knucklehead little guys fight to pay inflated prices for them.

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.css-1m2rp1p{color:#34b8b5;}Public Eye | Proof yet again that in Hong Kong the big guys always win

Public Eye | Proof yet again that in Hong Kong the big guys always win