Coronavirus: thousands of public hospital staff to vote on strike action on Saturday ahead of potential walkout next week
- Hospital Authority Employees Alliance says its 13,000 members will vote if government does not close border with mainland
- Union predicts nearly 10 per cent of workers at city’s public hospitals could take part
Thousands of doctors, nurses and other hospital staff in Hong Kong are threatening to go on strike next week if the government continues to ignore their demands to completely close the border with mainland China.
A health workers’ union said on Friday that almost 7,000 public sector medical workers could take the drastic step if Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor did not act to combat the threat of the coronavirus outbreak.
The Hospital Authority Employees Alliance said the workers, accounting for about 8 per cent of all employees at public hospitals, had expressed their readiness to escalate industrial action if their call continued to fall on deaf ears.
Winnie Yu Wai-ming, the alliance’s chairwoman, said its 13,000 members would vote on Saturday to decide whether to press ahead with the planned strike, which could start as early as Monday.
“As medical staff, we never wish to resort to strike action to make our demands heard,” she said. “We hope the government will not back us into that desperate corner.”
