Hong Kong bus drivers plan work-to-rule over Transport Department’s failure to remove guidelines that can lead to 14-hour shifts
Union expects 4,000 drivers to take part in industrial action and warns of ‘escalation’ if changes are not made
A bus drivers’ union expects about 4,000 drivers to join a work-to-rule on Friday morning in protest against the Transport Department’s failure to remove a guideline that could see them working 14-hour shifts.
And a union official warned that if this week’s action had no affect, then an “escalation” could be expected.
Some drivers from all three of the city’s bus firms had wanted the “special shift” agreement removed from the revised guidelines on working hours, arguing it meant the issue of exhausted drivers behind the wheel remained unresolved.
At the moment, companies can schedule drivers for 14-hour shifts, with not less than three consecutive hours of rest time in between. So far, only KMB have been implementing 14-hour special shifts to handle busy hours in the morning and evening.
Members of the Federation of Bus Industry Trade Unions, which represents about 2,000 drivers from the city’s three largest franchised bus companies – KMB, Citybus and New World First Bus – are upset at the move, as well as the failure to make the rest time payable.
The union’s spokesman Chung Chung-fai, of New World First Bus, said that during the work-to-rule, which will begin with the first buses of the day, and run until 10am, drivers would not drop off or pick up passengers before the vehicles were completely into the designated areas in bus stops.