[Excerpt translation from Chinese to English provided by Business and Human Rights Resource Centre]

“Employee alleges HK01 of firing him for criticizing its provision of substandard masks and home office policy on Facebook”, 12 February 2020

Amidst the coronavirus outbreak, many firms have allowed employees to work from home to reduce the risk of infection. However, an employee from HK01, a Hong Kong-based online news portal, told Stand News that he was fired after criticizing the company for providing substandard masks and not allowing regular staff members to work from home on Facebook. He suspected that HK01 has infringed his freedom of speech and he will turn to the Labour Department for help.

When Stand News called So Hiu Ting, Deputy Chief Executive Officer of HK01 and requested a comment, So said she was “in a meeting” and asked the reporter to “reach out to the Human Resources Department” before hanging up the phone. When calling Leung Lok Yi, Chief Commercial Director who handles human resources matters, Leung said she needed to forward the matter to other colleagues and would respond later.

Stand News also sent emails to HK01, So Hiu Ting and Leung Lok Yi to request further elaboration and is still waiting for their responses.

Working as the Manager of the Commercial Creativity Department at HK01, Mr. Wong posted a feed via his personal Facebook account and criticized HK01 without specifying its name for distributing substandard masks to staff members. He also questioned why the company only allowed employees who have been to China, show symptoms or have been in contact with patients to apply for work from home while other colleagues who are worried about being infected could only apply for annual leave, “When I asked them why we cannot work from home, they said this would be unfair to other departments that need to work in the office”.

When being interviewed by Stand News, Wong said So Hiu Ting, Deputy CEO of HK01 later screen captured his post and asked if it was published by him… So Hiu Ting then issued a dismissal letter and asked Wong to leave the office immediately, saying that he was fired because of his Facebook post.

According to Wong, So alleged the post of being inconsistent with facts. However, Wong reiterated that the company policy he described on the day the feed was posted (1 February) was accurate, only that HK01 has loosened its policy a few days later and allowed department heads to decide whether to let their staff members work from home…