A postal union has urged the government to review its working guidelines for its post office employees to protect them from the dangerous heat on the job.
Hong Kong Postal Workers Union chairman Cheung Wai-kuen said on Thursday that postal workers in the city are exposed to the risk of having heatstrokes, delivering an average of 16 kilograms of mail each day in the hot weather.
Cheung urged the Hongkong Post to review the working guidelines to allow its postal workers to take sufficient breaks when working under extremely hot weather, as well as to improve the heat insulation of its postal vehicles.
Meanwhile, lawmaker Aron Kwok Wai-keung of the Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions, said the SAR government should enact laws to better protect workers who need to work in hot environments.
Kwok said authorities should consider making upgrades to the postal vehicles to enable postal workers to switch on the air-conditioning system in advance, so as to cool down the temperature inside the compartment before the postal workers’ actual ride.
