FORMER STREET SLEEPER Uncle Yeung now has a roof over his head, but his tiny home must be one of the least sought after in Hong Kong. The elderly man lives in his place of work - a public toilet. He eats and sleeps in a small store room among bottles of detergent and mops used for cleaning the toilet. His bed is a sofa and his meagre assortment of clothes hangs from pipes and light-fittings. Uncle Yeung (not his real name) works 14 hours a day and is paid $7 an hour - half the income of the lowest paid workers at some fast food outlets. He provides a public service, one contracted out by the Government. The 67-year-old is an example of a new under-class which social workers and unionists say is being exploited by the subcontractors of employers who win government contracts by putting in very low bids. The second-floor toilet which serves as his home is near a foul-smelling rubbish depot and is surrounded by old buildings. 'I feel as if I am being locked up here like a prisoner,' said Uncle Yeung. 'My boss does not allow me to leave the toilet, apart from two hours for eating. If I am not here when he comes, I will be fired. 'I do not like this job, but what else can I do? I am so old that no one wants to hire me.' The Government aims to improve efficiency and save costs by tendering out hundreds of thousands of jobs, such as street cleaning, waste collection, security and car-park-management services for public-housing estates. Most of the contracts are awarded by the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department and the Housing Department. Critics say that although taxpayers' money is saved, many workers are forced to live in poverty and without dignity. The Food and Environmental Hygiene Department said all sub-contracting must be approved by the department and so far no such applications had been received. Also, the Housing Department said sub-contracting in cleaning and security was not allowed under the terms of the government contracts. However, insiders say that sub-contracting is common. Some big companies pass the jobs on to small sub-contractors. It is understood that some of these sub-contractors are targeting street sleepers, the elderly, drug addicts and mentally disabled for the low-paid jobs. The sub-contractors canvass street sleepers in Shamshuipo and Mongkok. They offer no days off or any other kind of benefit required by law. Poverty and the need to alleviate it has been a hot topic recently. Government figures show that in the aftermath of the economic downturn, the number of people earning less than $6,000 a month in Hong Kong has increased 14.6 per cent in the past three years, reaching 450,400 in the second quarter of last year. Unionist and lawmaker Lee Cheuk-yan said many of these cheap workers had jobs which were contracted out by the Government. He estimated that about 200,000 people were working for contractors of the Government and non-governmental organisations. Mr Lee will propose a motion at the Legislative Council on Wednesday to call on the Government to set down minimal requirements on workers' wages and conditions in their tenders. 'It is ridiculous that, while Tung Chee-hwa keeps telling the public he is concerned very much about the livelihood of the low-income families, he turns a blind eye to such exploitation of workers.' He said the working hours for security guards at public-housing estates should be cut from 12 hours to eight hours a day. But he added that the Housing Department estimated shortening the working hours would increase security-staff costs by 40 per cent. 'The Government now only looks at the money side. A housing official told me a few days ago that the department is more concerned about the output of services, not the input. They want to leave a free hand to the estate-management companies.' Uncle Yeung obtained his job through a sub-contractor a few months ago. He does not know which company he is working for, and he has no employment documents. 'A man approached me in a Shamshuipo park. He asked me if I was interested in having a job. Cleaning toilets is a disgusting job to the young. It is a job for a poor, old man like me.' Uncle Yeung's daily rate earns him around $3,000 a month. He could receive more than $4,000 if he agreed to have his wages paid into a bank account each month. But he prefers to be paid daily, in cash. The amount is much less than the monthly wages of a civil-service workman performing cleaning duties, which range from $9,785 to $10,175. Ng Wai-tung, a social worker for the Society for Community Organisation who helps many elderly workers, said subcontracting of jobs was very common. 'The main contractors pass the project to sub-contractors, and the same process goes on. Sometimes there are two or three middlemen, and they eat up most of the money, leaving only a small sum available to pay the workers. You may say the contractors are providing job opportunities to the elderly, but we are concerned very much about exploitation. The working conditions are inhumane.' Wong Foon, 73, worked as a cleaner in a public-housing estate for four years. She worked nine hours a day and made only $3,200 a month. She worked every day, because if she wanted a rest, her pay would be reduced. 'I did not have a holiday for four years. I only had one day off on the Lunar New Year day,' she said. 'The wage was so low, I could only eat salted fish and vegetables.' Ms Wong used to dig into household rubbish for old newspapers, which brought about $10 more a day from a recycling company. She was dismissed last March after her boss' contract with the Government ended. One sub-contractor said that with a very small budget, he could offer no basic employment benefits, such as statutory holidays and a weekly rest day. The subcontractor, who wished to be identified only as Mr Ng, said he could only offer $4,200 a month for public-toilet cleaners. They have to work from 7.30am to 9.30pm. Mr Ng said main contractors, in general, make about 15 per cent profit out of the tender from the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department. He is an individual sub-contractor and has 40 workers. He earns between $10,000 and $20,000 from each project. Mr Ng admitted that the wages paid to the workers were very low but said the Government was to blame. 'The government departments are very mean, they only choose from the three cheapest bids. Anyone who wants to give workers higher pay can never win the tender,' he said. 'The main contractors want to save all the troubles in employment and in contributions to the Mandatory Provident Fund, so they pass the jobs to us.' Mr Ng said that without having a minimum wage in the contracts, wages would be further cut in the future. 'But with a minimum wage, we will be less flexible in hiring people.' Legislator Leung Yiu-chung said the existing lowest-bid-wins mechanism meant contractors had to cut wages to cover their cost. 'In the past, when those works were provided under the government structure, workers would get some sort of allowance. But now, these types of unwanted jobs are paid the lowest.' The Food and Environmental Hygiene Department said its 96 contracts to the private sector cost a total of $325 million a year. Among them, 40 are market cleaning and 22 are street cleaning. The department said a saving of 30 per cent of the cost is generally achieved by contracting out cleansing services. The Housing Department awarded 260 cleansing and security contracts covering about 160 estates last year. The projects cost about $780 million. 'The wages of workers employed by contractors are commercial dealings between them and their employers, determined according to market trend, and therefore no minimum wage will be quoted in the contracts,' the department said. Ella Lee ( ellalee@scmp.com ) is a staff writer for the Post's Editorial Pages
