Police officers in Hong Kong on Friday launched a high-tech campaign to raise their pay levels, sending out DVDs and issuing an online warning that force morale is at an “all-time low.”
A 10-minute DVD produced by police staff associations and arguing for new pay scales that would add an average US$230 a month to pay packets was sent out to 27,000 Hong Kong officers and broadcast online.
Officers were also being asked to sign a letter to the head of a government advisory body that is to make official recommendations next month on how much police officers should be paid through 2013.
The letter said constables on a current starting salary of around US$2,150 a month are running out of patience, adding: “Morale in the police towards the administration is at an all-time low.”
The DVDs and letters are being sent out after a deadlocked meeting on Wednesday between the advisory body and staff associations, which have expressed rising frustration at the lack of progress in the talks.
The last full review of Hong Kong police pay scales was in 1988 and the current review was promised five years ago, the staff associations said.
Chung Kam-wah (鍾錦華), chairman of the Junior Police Officers Association, representing more than 22,000 officers, said the existing pay scales left mid-ranking officers “waiting on the sidelines on a career plateau.”
Police Force Council staff spokesman Mark Ford-McNicol said that the dispute would not affect the quality of policing.
“We will keep Hong Kong safe, and we know the importance of rule of law,” he said.
“There is still an ‘esprit de corps’ and a sense of duty and responsibility within the force, but this goodwill factor cannot last forever,” he warned.
A statement from the standing committee said it would take into account factors including morale and “financial and economic considerations” when it makes its recommendations.
“It is up to the chief executive and the administration to consider whether and, if so, to what extent the committee’s recommendations should be accepted,” the statement said.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not