“Coronavirus: give street cleaners surgical masks or risk them walking off the job, Hong Kong warned”, 6 February 2020

Tens of thousands of street cleaners and sanitation workers in Hong Kong will run out of protective face masks in two weeks and will have to stop working, their employers have said, warning piles of rubbish could be left in the streets amid the deadly coronavirus outbreak.

Critics and campaigners accused officials of passing the buck and said they had a responsibility to ensure adequate protection for the cleaners, who work for government contractors…

… the Environmental Services Contractors Alliance, a group that represents about 80 per cent of cleaning companies in the city, released a survey that polled more than 30 firms in the sector between January 31 and February 4, and revealed the industry only had enough masks to last about two weeks.

Group convenor Catherine Yan Sui-han said one company that employed about 4,000 people had already stopped giving masks to its workers, adding that 5 million masks were urgently needed, an amount that would last about 14 days.

“We don’t want to go on strike, but we may be forced out of work because some employees will not work without a mask,” she said…

Yan called on the government to provide masks, in particular to the about 40,000 cleaners hired by government contractors…

… Wu Mei-lin, executive director of the Hong Kong Women Workers’ Association, a group that represents low-income workers, said some cleaners she contacted were forced to reuse the same mask for days on end, and some even resorted to cleaning old masks in the washing machine.

“Some companies have long exploited street cleaners and janitors by not providing them enough protective gear like masks and gloves, breaching contract terms,” Wu said. “This should be a wake-up call for them as low-income workers should not have to choose between their health and their work.”…

In a statement… the government said it was exercising “maximum flexibility to ... actively [contact] suppliers in different countries to procure the masks and necessary protective items globally”, after it was embroiled in a social media storm over an alleged bureaucratic tendering process…