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Union warns reduced civil servant pay rise after Tai Po fire would ‘bow to populism’
Unions argue that an across-the-board pay rise of 2 per cent will not offset inflation or reflect overall performance
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Factoring Hong Kong’s deadly Tai Po fire into a civil service pay review has dealt a blow to staff morale and risks creating perceptions of populism, unions have warned, saying a proposed 2 per cent across-the-board rise fails to offset inflation or reflect overall performance.
Human resources experts, however, said public sentiment had to be considered as pay adjustments involved allocating taxpayers’ money, while the modest rise would have a very limited impact on the private sector.
The backlash from unions came ahead of a meeting on Wednesday between Secretary for the Civil Service Ingrid Yeung Ho Poi-yan and staff representatives.
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The Executive Council, the city’s top decision-making body, will then make a final decision on the increase.
Asked on Tuesday whether the 2 per cent figure – lower than previously proposed – was linked to the performance of individual civil servants in relation to the Tai Po fire, Yeung said any decision made by Exco had taken “public perception and acceptance” into account.
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A hearing into the inferno, which killed 168 people last November, revealed bureaucratic failures, buck-passing among government departments and mishandling of public complaints.
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