University catering staff underpaid, survey reveals
Outsourced workers at university restaurants earn HK$3 to $5 an hour less than the market rate, a survey has found.
Cleaners and general workers were paid HK$18.60 an hour on average, compared with a market rate of HK$21.70, according to Census figures. The rate for cashiers was HK$22.40, HK$5.10 less than the market rate of HK$27.50.
The survey, which polled 216 of the estimated 2,000 outsourced workers in all seven publicly funded universities, was conducted by the Catering and Hotels Industries Employees General Union.
Outsourced workers at Baptist University were paid the least, HK$20.50 an hour, followed by HK$21 at Polytechnic University.
Baptist University's vice-president (development) Fan Yiu-kwan said: 'There are wage guidelines in the contracts. If anyone breaches them, we will take it seriously.'
Senior manager Raymond Cheung Wai-man of Shing Hin Catering Group, one of the contractors serving Baptist University, City University, Polytechnic University and Lingnan University, said: 'If they [the union] did not collect sufficient data, there might have been discrepancies in the findings.
'I believe we are not the one who pays the lowest [rate].'
Despite the government's wage protection movement for cleaners and security guards, 86 per cent of the workers hoped for a statutory minimum wage.
Slightly over half of those paid on an hourly basis said the optimum rate was HK$30 to $34.90.
