Long post ahead, I don't know how to make tldr so please bear with me.
So the CEO of the company I'm working at (a service company in Hong Kong) announced that they're releasing promotion and salary increment arrangements in mid-Mar, and any salary increases will be with retrospective effect from 1 Jan, 2022. Say if I got a salary increase of $1k, my Mar salary slip will have an extra $3k. It's not the first time they're doing this retrospective thing, they used to happen in mid-Jan pre-2019 which is totally legal and understandable, then pushed to mid-Feb in 2020 and 2021, and now even later in Mar. I told my ex-colleagues and they think it's their way of deterring staff from resigning during the peak season in Mar.
For the record, our department has 200 people and my team has around 20. Only 1 of us got a promotion in 2021 and no one else in our team had a salary increase. All our last salary increases were in Feb 2020 and half my teammates left in around Apr 2021. We were supposed to have promotion / salary reviews twice a year but we never got the mass email for the promotion list in summer 2021 so 3 more in our team left. I joined in 2019 and was supposed to have a promotion in 2020 based on pervious promotion practices but I never got mine (nor did the majority who joined in 2019 as well). I'm the only non-manager staff left in my team who witnessed this throughout these years.
It's not like our salaries were anywhere near market level in the first place after the upper management and shareholder changed in 2018 (my current salary after 3 years of experience is way lower than a fresh graduate at some competitors). Our team leader (30+ years of experience in this company, bless her) told us in summer 2021 the upper management's response to the lack of promotion / salary increase was due to budget problem. All the while the upper management:-
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used loads of money to snatch more upper management to the company at a high salary;
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made the existing team leaders freeze their salaries as well (I heard gossips that the upper management told them in order to secure the promotion of their team members, they need a salary decrease and will use the decreased amount for the promoted teammate's increase. But I don't have proof of whether that's a real thing or not);
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keep making the manager-grade staff to produce more revenue (we use timesheets to log our productive hours every week); and
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cut headcount when someone resigns while shoving an expanding client portfolio down our throats (e.g. 5 people leaving but only hiring 3 back with a portfolio of ~150 clients increased to ~200).
Before anyone of you asks, I'm still here after these years cause I'm taking night time master's and I need the relevant working experience and annual leave days for exams in order to get the licence after I graduate (and yes I am also too lazy / busy working overtime / studying to prepare a good CV). We are bound by employee contract (and also the social norm here in HK) to give 1 month notice, and employee handbook doesn't allow us to take any leaves after handing in your letter except for sick leave which is a no pay leave in your last month. But honestly I'm seriously wondering why I'm still taking this crap and letting them walk all over us.
And most importantly after my rant, is this retrospective salary increment / promotion even legal? What can I do to protect my job, salary, and rights?
Thanks y'all for having the patience to read till the end.