Press Release for 522 Action
Members of the HK Government should be of the highest integrity
Victor Lo Chun-wing should not be selected as ExCo member
Today is the Exco meeting , representatives of about 50 groups and individuals from the civil society organized a petition at the Government headquarter against Mr. Victor Lo Chung-wing, Gold Peak Industries (Holdings) Hong Kong [hereafter GP], who owns the GP batteries in China, demanding fair compensation to the GP workers who were poisoned by cadmium. We urged Mr. Donald Tsang not to include Victor Lo as the Exco member for the new term.
Starting from the end of 2003, as a result of GPs long-term negligence in production safety, many workers were found to have been poisoned through their work at GP:
---11 workers from three mainland GP plants and three workers from GP plants in Hong Kong have been affected by cadmium poisoning.
--- 400 workers from the mainland and 21 workers from Hong Kong have been found to have excessive cadmium levels and are placed under observation.
GP has so far refused to meet the workers’ demands on fair compensation. Therefore the GP Cadmium Poisoning Coalition (hereafter the Coalition) has launched a signature campaign since April and demands GP to take up corporate social responsibility--pay full compensation to workers and provide fair medical check ups for the workers and their young children.
The statement urging the Hong Kong SAR Chief Executive Donald Tsang to keep Victor Lo out of the Executive Council for the next term. We believe that as an Executive Council member, one should be of the highest professional and personal integrity, be respectful of law, human rights and labour rights. If he is a member of the business sector, he should lead his company to take up corporate social responsibility and should not be involved in collusion with officials. However, the way Mr. Victor Lo and his company have treated their workers shows that Mr. Lo is not up to these basic requirements.
Today we have collected around 50 groups and individuals to co-sign the statement which include signatures of 17 legco members: Martin Lee, Albert Ho, Cheng Kar-foo, Lee Wing-tat, Sin Chung-Kai, Li Wah-ming, To Kun-sun, Cheung Man-kwong, Yeung Sum, Kwok Ka-ki, Cheung Chiu-hung, Emily Lau, Lee Cheuk-yan, Leung Yiu-chung, Chan Wai-yip, Lau Chin-shek, and Leung Kwok-hung. (Statement attached)
Lastly, GP is currently the subject of an international campaign headed by the International trade Union Confederation (ITUC) and the ITUC issued a statement criticizing the GP cadmium poisoning incident and called for their affiliates all over the world, civil society, government and international organization to exert pressure on GP and urge GP to take up its corporate social responsibility. ITUC represents 168 million workers in 153 countries and territories and has 304 national affiliates.
GP Cadmium Poisoning Coalition
22-5-2007
Note:
On April 22, the Coalition did a protest action in front of shops that sell GP batteries. We visited several big local retailers such as Welcome Supermarket (Great George Street), Fortress (Great George Street), Pricerite (Paterson Street) and Broadway (Paterson Street). We distributed leaflets, postcards and shout slogans: No sweatshop batteries! Top 10 brand but poison workers! Fair Compensation now! Stop humiliating body check up! An Exco without Victor Lo! In the end we broke the balloon to imply GP’s CSR is a myth and we hope workers will get well soon.
See Victor Lo's CV here .
News update: Victor Lo finally stepped down from Exco on 20 Jan 2009. See more at http://www.info.gov.hk/gia/general/200901/20/P200901200130.htm