China Broker Pressured Hong Kong Staff on Virus Test, Union Says
China Broker Pressured Hong Kong Staff on Virus Test, Union Says
(Bloomberg) -- China’s Founder Securities Co. drew criticism from a labor union for pressuring its staff in Hong Kong to participate in the government’s campaign to get everyone in the financial hub tested for the coronavirus.
Founder Securities went as far as telling employees to present their test results to the broker’s human resources department, the Hong Kong Financial Industry Employees General Union said in a letter to the Beijing-based firm’s Hong Kong office on Monday. The union, which posted the letter on its Facebook page, criticized the move in light of the testing program’s voluntary nature and said employees should be free to get tested based on their actual needs and wishes.
Founder employees sought help from the union on concern that their performance will be penalized if they don’t get tested, according to the letter. The brokerage declined to comment.
The episode represents a hurdle for the Beijing-backed campaign, which is trying to convince everyone in the city to voluntarily get tested within days -- the first time such an effort has been attempted worldwide. Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam on Tuesday renewed her efforts to urge residents to get tested after less than 10% of the city had registered for the blitz amid concerns about privacy, the reliability of the tests and safety.
Large-scale testing would help people understand that the screening “isn’t as painful or as difficult as they imagine,” Lam said during a press briefing on Tuesday.
Hong Kong reported 12 virus cases on Tuesday, of which nine were locally-transmitted and three were imported. Most were linked to previous infections but investigators couldn’t trace how one of the people contracted the virus.
Separately, Apple Daily reported that Hong Kong-based K Wah International Holdings Ltd. urged employees and their families to take the test, with those failing to do required to provide an explanation. A representative for K Wah, a property developer with a focus on Hong Kong and mainland China, wasn’t immediately able to comment.
As to Lam, she’s been forced to defend the mass testing exercise from criticism in a political environment soured by mistrust following months of pro-democracy protests, the implementation of a new national security law and activists’ fears that virus measures were being used to curtail their ability to demonstrate.
About 651,000 people -- in a city of 7.5 million -- had registered online for testing as of 5 p.m. on Tuesday, Secretary for Civil Service Patrick Nip said at a press conference. Some 82,000 tests had been carried out as of 4 p.m., he said.
Lasting up to two weeks, the program entitles citizens to a free, one-time test and is on a voluntary basis. Critics have alleged the universal testing plan backed by China was an attempt to harvest residents’ DNA -- and that it came too late to do much good, as a third wave of virus cases tails off.
Even the city’s Hospital Authority Employees Alliance, comprised of health care workers, has called for a boycott.
©2020 Bloomberg L.P.