HONG KONG - FLIGHTS into and out of Hong Kong were heavily disrupted on Saturday afternoon after more than 500 airport ground staff went on strike in protest at a cut in their annual bonus.
The three-hour strike resulted in major delays to the departure or baggage delivery of 83 flights until 6pm Saturday, a spokesman for the Airport Authority told AFP.
Some passengers told broadcaster Cable TV on arrival they had to wait for two hours before they could get their luggage.
The industrial action took place after Hong Kong Airport Services, one of the three companies providing ground services to the airport, refused on Saturday morning to drop their decision to scrap the annual performance-based bonus for their 3,000 staff which usually amounted to one month's salary.
Instead, the company said it would give the staff a one-off payment of only 750 Hong Kong dollars (S$140).
'The company has made a profit this year despite the financial crisis. It is unfair for it to cut our bonus simply because of its concerns about what could happen to the company next year,' Mr Man Ng, a committee member of the Staff and Workers Union of Hong Kong Civil Airlines, told AFP.
'Our strike is to tell the world the way we are being treated by the company. We have tried our best to minimise our disruption to flight passengers by keeping the strike to only three hours,' he said.
Mr Ng said the bonus meant a lot to them because of their low salaries, which ranged from HK$6,400 to HK$10,000 a month.
The union said on Saturday night the company had offered to pay a bonus amounting to half a month's wages following the strike.
The union said the proposal would not be accepted but the staff had promised the company not to launch any further action until negotiations resumed on Jan 5.
The Airport Authority said it had deployed 100 extra staff to assist affected passengers on Saturday. It added that it had asked the other two ground services companies to stand by in case of further industrial action from the Hong Kong Airport Services staff. -- AFP
