26th September, 2011
To ThyssenKrupp Elevator (HK) Limited,
Work 33 hours a Day? No More Toleration! Strike and Get What We Deserve! Fight for Reasonable Pay and Secure Public Safety
ThyssenKrupp Elevator (HK) Limited is one of the three biggest elevator production company in the world and the sales record was 5.2 billion euro last year. While the company earns tremendous amount of money, she fails to treat her workers fairly.
During past few years, inflation erodes what workers can benefit from the enforcement of the statutory minimum wage. However, what we get is even worse than average workers in Hong Kong. Our salary has only increased by 0.5% in 2010 and 3% in 2011.
Generally in elevator maintenance industry, the salary of a newly-admitted assistant technician is 8500 HK dollars per month, while that for 4-to-10-year experience technician and 10-year experience technician are 12000 dollars and 14000 dollars respectively. Yet our salary is much lower than the average standard. A worker with 8-year experience only gets 7100 dollars per month. On the other hand, a newly-hired technician can get 8500 dollars. It is simply unfair. The company knows she can only compete for other company by increasing the salary for the new-comers, but this amounts to exploitation to the current workers who work so hard for the company.
As an elevator maintenance technician, our job is to ensure smooth operation of the elevator so that the people can use it safely. If we can work in pairs, not only the maintenance can be operated more smoothly, the working safety of workers can also be ensured. The company fails to enforce the labour law, since we often have to work alone, which tremendously increase the danger of operation. Three years ago, the company promised to increase workforce so as to enforce what labour law requires. Nevertheless, the company fails to do so and the problem persists.
As there is not enough workforce, we have to work overtime at night in case of any emergency. We also work to get overtime pay to compensate for the extremely low salary. As the company will not compensate a full-pay leave for our overtime work, we have to work continuously for 33 hours if we have to be on duty at night shift. This obviously threatens our health. What's worse, this adversely affect the quality of services provided and may mean an increase of chance of elevator operation problem, which may in turn increase the chance of accident and impede public safety.
We strike to get what we deserve and a reasonable pay. We also fight for the safety of ourselves and of our society. Belows are our demands:
1. Increase salary to a reasonable level
2. Increase the number of workforce and make sure we can work in pairs
3. Limit the working hours to less than 24 hours without lowering the salary
Thyssen Elevator Staff Union
Contact: Mr. Simon Leung (Union Organizer / 6443 5090), Mr. Cheng (Union Representative / 9833 5737)
What You Can Do:
You can support workers by contacting Mr. Peter Walker, the CEO of ThyssenKrupp Elevator (Asia/Pacific) Limited or Mr. Guenther Rittner, the Chairman of ThyssenKrupp Elevator HK Limited. You can either send an email to or telephone them to voice out our demands.
Their contacts are as follows:
Mr. Guenther Rittner
Chairman of ThyssenKrupp Elevator HK Limited
Tel: +852 3181 7888 Fax: +852 2861 2521
Email: [email protected]
Mr. Peter Walker
CEO of ThyssenKrupp Elevator (Asia/Pacific) Limited
Tel: +852 3511 0688 Fax: +852 3511 0678
Email: [email protected]
The Chairman of the Executive Board is Dr. -Ing. Heinrich Hiesinger, P.O. Box, 45063 Essen,
Phone: +49 201 844 0 ,
Fax: +49 201 844 536000
and email: [email protected]
Below is a sample letter for your reference:
Dear Mr. Guenther Rittner / Mr. Peter Walker,
I hereby write to you to support for the union strike. I fully support the three demands by the Thyssen Elevator Staff Union and I urge you to response their requests immediately.
Yours sincerely,
Your name & your organization
Here is the latest news of today's action: http://www.worldlabor.org/eng/node/494