Pay rises for KMB bus drivers not related to Hong Kong crash that left 19 dead, boss says
Company chairman Norman Leung says salary decision followed debate over long working hours after accident involving rival firm
A pay rise for KMB drivers announced in February had “nothing to do” with a fatal accident that killed 19 people in Tai Po earlier that month, the company’s chairman Norman Leung Nai-pang said on Tuesday.
Leung also read in media reports that drivers were earning less than HK$12,000 (US$1,540) a month and felt “something had to be done”. So by December, members of the board at KMB, the city’s largest bus operator, agreed to bump up pay from March 1 this year.
It said in a document submitted to the Independent Review Committee on Hong Kong’s Franchised Bus Service the change meant entry-level full-time bus drivers got HK$15,366 a month, up from HK$11,810.
“It has nothing to do with [the February accident],” he told the committee on Tuesday.