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On the Two Opposing
Views on the Wage Struggle of
Foreign Domestic Workers in Hong Kong
A Critique of the Joint Position Paper
of the Coalition for Migrants’ Rights and their
Allied Groups entitled
“Wage Protection for Foreign Domestic Workers
in HK!”
17 March 2005
Last March 13, the Coalition for Migrants Rights (CMR)
and their allied groups launched their “FDW Wage
Protection Campaign”. The said campaign, its analyses
and calls, were expressed in a joint position paper
signed by the CMR, the HK Coalition of Indonesian Migrant
Workers Organization (KOTKIHO), Asian Migrant Centre
(AMC), Migrant Forum in Asia (MFA), Akbayan-HK, and
the Alliance of Progressive Labor-HK.
We do not know if this joint position has been deeply
discussed and analyzed by the signatories. Nevertheless,
we are issuing this critique to clarify our position
among our members and other networks that may have received
the said joint position paper. For purposes of brevity,
we used “CMR and its allies” to refer to
the signatories whether or not they actually agree to
the entire paper.
The United Filipinos in Hong Kong (UNIFIL-HK) has chosen
to issue this critique because we are disturbed by the
said analysis and calls. We are disturbed because the
line that the campaign carries, though at first glance
may appear really for the migrant workers, will reveal
otherwise with further analysis. Not only are we disturbed
but we are also alarmed that their analyses and calls
may spread without being challenged, sow confusion among
the ranks of migrant organizations, and also create
a rift between migrants and the workers and local peoples
of Hong Kong.
“Wage protection” is the rallying call
of this campaign. They said: “In 2005, CMR
and partners are reviving the campaign on “FDW
Wage Protection”. This wants to focus the campaign
back on the real issues faced by FDWs, and promote FDW
(not employers’) interests.”
Under the banner of wage protection, the campaign
includes: 1. Stamping out underpayment and overcharging
of recruitment agencies; 2. Converting the levy into
a “Protection Fund for FDWs; 3. A two-step wage
increase in two years – 6% in 2005 and 12% in
2006. Thrown in for good measures are FDW social security
protection, a call for consultation with registered
FDW trade unions in policy changes and “related
demands” that includes the abolition of the two-week
rule or the New Conditions of Stay (NCS).
The campaign’s centerpiece is the call to convert
the levy for hiring FDWs implemented by the Hong Kong
government in October 2003, into a “Protection
Fund for FDWs” supposedly to solve “factors
that erode our wages (e.g. underpayment, high recruitment
fees). Even though they claimed that the “CMR’s primary campaign is wage protection
and wage increase”, the wage hike campaign
for them will “simply recover the 2 wage cuts (1999
and 2003), and bring back FDW MAW to 1998 levels”.
For the CMR and the other groups, the call “to
abolish the employers’ levy only serves the employers’,
not FDWs’, interests.” Obviously, they
want to say that the campaign to abolish the levy, which
the Asian Migrants Coordinating Body (AMCB) to which
UNIFIL is a member of, is a pro-employer campaign. They
want to say that the 12,000 FDWs who marched with AMCB
on February 2003 against the levy are pro-employers.
Even the local workers and trade unions who called to
abolish the levy are pro-employers. In short, they claim
that their “levy as a protection fund campaign”
is the one that is really pro-FDWs.
I. How did they arrive with such an analysis?
The position paper immediately placed the issues of
underpayment and overcharging to build their justification.
They said that “underpayment
is one of the most widespread forms of abuse against
FDWs in Hong Kong… is linked to the excessive fees charged by
recruitment agencies”. Thus, “for
these FDWs, any wage hike is meaningless, and
only serves to intensify the underpayment that they
suffer”. For them, solving the underpayment
and overcharging problem is “one
of the first and most immediate steps needed to raise
the actual wages of FDWs”. This they said
is possible if only the HK authorities were more efficient.
From here, the CMR and the signatories proceeded to
say that the the levy was implemented “to generate at least HK$1 billion every
year” for the HK government. They clarified
that their opposition to the wage cut and levy in 2003
was from their “principled
opposition … not on the employers’ levy
itself – our protests were against the INTENDED
USE of the levy, and the PROCESS by which it was implemented
(government selling-off the FDWs to lessen employers’
resistance to the levy).”
Furthermore, the levy, for them, is an issue of employers.
Therefore, “the
employers should defend their own interests, not
the FDWs.”
For them, FDW opposition to the levy means a campaign
to ” DECLARE
& USE THE LEVY AS A PROTECTION FUND TO COMPENSATE
AND PROTECT FDWs AGAINST EMPLOYERS’ ABUSES.” The levy for them is “one powerful weapon that is now available to FDWs –
a financial bond/guarantee, already paid by the employers
and readily available – to make them pay/responsible
if they commit any underpayment or violation of the
FDW contract”.
In relation to their other demands, they further believed
that social security like the MPF is part of wage protection
because it “can
also be a used to detect and stamp out underpayment/illegal
employment”.
Tempting calls and demands if one will not make a deeper
analysis.
II. But what do they really mean and what do we say
about it?
A. “Give up the wage increase fight as immediate
struggle of workers”
1. The CMR and their allies’ call for a wage
increase is incidental and a lipservice. They put this
demand as no. 3 in their list. It is not a primary call
for them because, as they said, it is to “simply (a very revealing choice of word) recover
the two wage cuts”. For them, the primary
problems of FDWs are underpayment and overcharging and
not the fact that the wage of FDWs is basically exploitative.
2. Their placing of the demand to stamp out underpayment
and overcharging as a top demand is a reminder of the
line peddled by Mr. James Tien – chairman of the
Liberal Party and one of the main proponents of the
HK$400 wage cut in 2003.
That time, Mr. Tien used as a springboard the issues
of underpayment and overcharging of recruitment agencies
in order to deflect the issue of the wage cut. Simply,
what he wanted to say then was overcharging and underpayment
were the main problems of FDWs and not the actual wage
level. Isn’t this what the CMR and their allies
want to say now?
Have they forgotten this fact? Haven’t they realized
that this line can be used by the Hong Kong government,
has already been used in fact, to veer away from the
main issue of just wage increase for all FDWs? This
makes the CMR analysis even more dangerous.
3. Nobody can deny that overcharging and underpayment
are two of the most prevalent problems of FDWs in Hong
Kong. These problems should indeed be addressed. It
is, however, misleading to say that stamping out underpayment
and overcharging will increase the wages of FDWs. This
is deceitful and illusory!
The fight for a wage increase is a fight to increase
the MAW. Resolving underpayment and overcharging will only increase the take home pay of a specific section,
those who are victims of underpayment and overcharging.
It does not address the current low and exploitative
MAW. So what happens then to the rest of the FDWs?
The demand for a wage hike thus remains to be the main
struggle of FDWs. It is in the interest of all FDWs.
This also includes those victimized by overcharging
and underpayment who, if they win their cases against
their employers, will receive more than the current
HK$3,270. That is a real wage increase.
4. The CMR and its allies call for a two-step wage
hike. They opted to lower the wage hike demand to HK$200
(6% this 2005) and tried to make it acceptable by injecting
a demand for a 12% increase in 2006.
We wonder, why not 18% now? Is it because for the CMR,
a wage hike of more than 6% is out of the capacity of
the HK government to implement? If this is so, isn’t
the CMR becoming an apologist for the HK government?
Or this time, the CMR suddenly shifted to become pro-employer,
thinking that the employers may not be able to afford
the salary to HK$3670 now?
Even in any negotiation, one primarily holds on to
the just and reasonable maximum demand. To lower the
demand without fighting for it in the first place is
nothing but a sellout.
5. They failed to provide a distinction that is even
used in the legal arena between wages and benefits.
Thus they fell into the trap of misrepresenting social
security protection like the MPF as “effectively” giving “a 5% wage hike to FDWs”. Wages,
employment and social benefits are three different issues.
To confuse the expansion of employment and social benefits
as a wage increase is false and practically reduces
and sidelines the fight for the actual worker’s
wages.
B. “Yes to the levy! Anyway, the employers
are the ones paying for it.”
1. For the HK government, hiring of FDWs is a privilege.
Thus, employers should pay a tax to hire them. As a further refinement though, the HK government
justified it under the existing Employee’s Retraining
Ordinance. Now, the CMR and its allies, like the HK
government, want the FDWs, the workers and the local
peoples to accept the levy.
What they don’t want to recognize is the fact
that the levy is actually regressive taxation towards
ordinary working people in Hong Kong that are made to
suffer the burden of the HK economic crisis.
To transform the levy into a “protection fund”
is just trying to make pretty the form of an essentially
stinking policy and make it more acceptable.
From the onset, it has been clear that the levy will
benefit only the Hong Kong government because its main
aim is to generate revenues (which incidentally, they
did admit in their paper. We wonder what for?). It was
implemented to resolve Hong Kong’s budget deficit
by raising money formally from the employers of FDWs
and practically from the FDWs themselves through the
HK$400 wage cut.
2. Regressive taxation is a prescription of neo-liberal
policies. It has been the experience in many countries
that whenever an economic crisis hits, the governments
automatically push through with taxation that targets
the workers and ordinary people. It does not matter
that the crisis itself was brought about by the implementation
of neoliberal policies.
If this is so, aren’t the CMR and its allies
subscribing to neoliberalism by agreeing to regressive
taxation? Considering that the World Trade Organization
is the main vehicle for advancing neoliberal policies,
doesn’t it translate to support of the WTO? And
we thought that they were against WTO!
3. The CMR and its allies also gives false
hopes that the proposed “Protection Fund for
FDWs” can serve as a “powerful
weapon” to distressed FDWs. They claim that
it would be “readily available” compensation
for FDWs with cases against their employers.
But don’t they know that even compensation follows
from due process? No system gives compensation just
because one claimed of underpayment or any other violation.
Compensation is given only AFTER the case has already been resolved. Once this happens,
abusive employers are obliged to pay.
So this means that the said protection fund is NOT
readily available as they want us to believe. More so,
wouldn’t this protection fund, if established,
suffer the same bureaucratic problems as that with the
current Labor Department’s grievance mechanisms?
4. We are wondering why they seem to be so excited
about this formula as if it was something new and exciting.
Haven’t they heard of the Wage Insolvency Fund
which supposedly guarantees salary claims of aggrieved
FDWs/employees whenever employers declare bankruptcy?
This approaches, if not already mirrors, some of the
functions of their proposed “Protection Fund”.
5. More than these, they overblow the “Protection
Fund” as a “deterrent”, if not the
solution, to the problem of underpaid FDWs. We beg to
disagree.
On the contrary, the existence of the levy as a “protection
fund”, only gives license to unscrupulous and
abusive employers to further violate the rights of FDWs
. Since they have already paid the levy, these abusive
and unscrupulous employers would think that they can
continue abusing FDWs because anyway, the abused worker
can get “compensation” and “protection”
from the fund which they paid already. The proposal
reduces the legal responsibilities of unscrupulous employers.
It potentially exposes the FDWs to more abuses.
6. For them to simplistically say that underpayment
and overcharging can be stamped out by the Hong Kong
government and that their proposed “protection
fund” would “finally end the sufferings” of those underpaid and overcharged
FDWs, is exaggerated and messiahnic.
For example, how can an underpaid or overcharged Indonesian
migrant’s suffering be finally ended with just
receiving her claim from the so-called protection fund
while not addressing the reality that the Transmigration
Decree of the Indonesian government is still in effect?
The potential for these violations to be repeated is
still there.
The problem of underpayment and overcharging is systemic
and is not simply between FDWs, their employers and
the recruitment agencies. This is a by-product of deregulation
and privatization of overseas placement. Prevailing
policies of both sending and receiving countries affect
the incidence of these problems as well.
Without addressing the root causes of the problems
of forced migration and the labor export-import industry,
these sufferings cannot be finally ended.
C. “Employers are the enemies”: Threatening
locals’ and migrants’ solidarity
1. The proposal to transform the levy into a “Protection
Fund” threatens the solidarity of local workers
and people and migrant workers. It puts us into the
hands of the government’s agenda of pitting the
workers against each other. Isn’t this a sabotage
of worker’s and people’s solidarity?
Even local domestic workers – the supposed beneficiary
of the levy – through the local Hong Kong Domestic
Workers General Union, did not support the move. It
has always been clear that neither the local workers
nor the FDWs will benefit from the said regressive tax.
The local domestic workers even said that they were
used as scapegoats by the government to implement the
levy. Now here are the CMR and its allies throwing their
support to the levy with their own version of refining
the policy. Isn’t this ironic?
And why is it that they say that retraining of local
domestic workers should be the responsibility of the
Hong Kong government while saying at the same time that
the “protection” for FDWs should not be
the responsibility of the HK government and should be
borne by the employers through the levy?
2. Of course it is obvious that we need to fight against
unscrupulous and abusive employers. However, majority
of employers of FDWs are not the Tung Chee Hwas, Donald
Tsangs, Li Ka Shings and Stanley Hos of Hong Kong. Many
employers of FDWs are the civil servants, teachers,
ordinary employees and service workers. They are the
ones who are members of trade unions, worker’s
organizations, and community associations. These are
the people whose wages were also cut and were also burdened
by the past years’ economic problems. These are
the same people who are also seeking wage hikes and
social services from the government. For them, having
FDWs is not a privilege but a necessity because it frees
other members of the household to work for added income.
The CMR and its allies misrepresent the employers as
one class. They even went to the absurd belief that
the official Employer’s Association led by Joseph
Law speaks in behalf of ALL employers in Hong Kong and
from there branded ALL employers as anti-migrant. What
will those employers who are members of the civil servants
union, for example, say about this? There are even migrants
who have become residents here and employ domestic helpers.
How could the CMR and its allies face them and say that
it’s alright for them to pay the levy?
Their support to the collection of the levy from the
employers endangers the unity that the migrant workers
and the local workers and people can achieve to struggle
against this regressive taxation policy brought by neoliberalism.
3. Because the CMR and its allies narrow down the issues
into an employer-FDW conflict of interests without analyzing
the class composition of FDW employers, they deny some
commonalities of the migrant worker’s and the
local worker’s struggles for just wage, jobs and
worker’s rights. They try to limit the interests
of the migrant workers to only those that benefit the
sector. They are saying: “It’s alright that
others suffer as long as we benefit.” Where is
solidarity in that?
D. “You are pro-employers; We are pro-workers”:
Dividing the ranks of migrants
The analyses and line of the CMR and its allies, we
believe, can be used by the Hong Kong government to
counter the FDW demands to bring back the HK$3670 MAW
and to abolish the levy. It will sabotage the struggle
because it will give an excuse to the Hong Kong government
not to give in to the demand by using the reason that
not all FDW organizations want the wage to be brought
back to HK$3670 and that the levy should be scrapped.
The whole line that they carry is like cold water poured
over the burning calls for wage hike and against the
levy. By accepting the levy and putting the wage hike
demand into the sidelines, they appear to tell the FDWs
that the fight could not be won. This is the defeatist
attitude that will gravely affect the strength of the
ranks of the migrant workers not only in the current
fight but also against future policies that will again
attack our rights and wellbeing.
III. What are the real issues?
The two opposing views are reflected in the conflict
of calls and demands. Will it be wage protection and
transformation of the levy as a protection fund? Or
should it be “Bring back HK$3670 and Abolish the
Levy”?
But underneath this struggle of demands within the
sector are two opposing lines and principles regarding
the issues and demands of the sector and the course
of struggle that has to be taken.
From our perspective, and as we have explained in the
critique, the CMR and its allies have viewed the issues
of migrant workers from a purely economic point of view.
Having this view means:
- Misrepresenting an increase in take home pay, expansion
of employment and social benefits, and resolving cases of underpayment and overcharging
as actual wage increases and thus giving up the fight
for wage increases as secondary
- Claiming that having a protection fund will “finally
end the sufferings” of underpaid and overcharged
FDWs
- Accepting the levy and taxation because it does
not come from the pockets of the migrant worker and
especially if it will benefit them even at the expense
of the ordinary local people
- Reducing the issues as between FDW on one side and
employers and the recruitment agencies on the other
while failing to understand and address the systemic
roots of the issues
- Agreeing to neoliberal regressive taxation policies
of the Hong Kong government
- Creating the false hope that through consultation
and policy advocacy to governments alone, we can effectively
stamp out the problems especially that of underpayment
and overcharging which in effect passes the solution
to government and diminishes the role of the migrant
movement as lobbyists and consultants of governments
We should never forget that the wage of workers is
always not commensurate to his or her work. Thus, the
fight for a wage increase of workers is inherent, ever-present,
urgent and just.
Our struggle for wage increase will not, however, end
even when we are able to bring back the HK$400 that
was slashed from our wage. The struggle for a just wage
is a continuing fight of all workers.
While we strive for a wage hike, we should also never
let go of our call to abolish the levy. Not only because
it was practically charged to FDWs, but also because,
in itself, the levy is regressive taxation of the workers
and ordinary employees in Hong Kong that are made to
suffer the burden of the economic crisis.
The two demands though distinct from each other are
not separate. First and foremost, the levy was shouldered
by FDWs through the HK$400. This is the argument that
the Hong Kong government wishes to destroy. To admit
that this is so is to make the levy and the wage cut
not only unjust and immoral but also illegal. Thus,
Judge Hartmann, in his decision in favor of the HK government
on the judicial review of the levy, tried to highlight
the distinction between the two.
To abolish the levy serves the interest of employers
the majority of whom are ordinary working people in
HK. It helps to rally and educate the local working
peoples against regressive taxation and neoliberal policies.
And it indirectly benefits the immediate demand of the
FDWs because it pre-empts potential opposition to the
call to at least bring back the MAW to HK$3,670.
We must understand that wage cuts and regressive taxation
are both instruments of neoliberal policies. The migrant
workers and local peoples both experienced wage cuts
during the financial crisis. While the levy was imposed
on the local people, the migrant workers practically
shouldered it for now. In this sense, we have been both
victimized by regressive taxation. In effect, migrant
workers and majority of local peoples have both been
targeted by neoliberal policies. And that is our common
enemy.
In this continuing campaign, the unified ranks of the
migrant workers are crucial. We shall hold on to the
lesson that only through unified actions can we achieve
our demands. Also, we shall always strive to stand in
solidarity with the local peoples in Hong Kong for we
are essentially both victimized by policies that only
serve a few and deny the rights of many.
The UNIFIL is steadfast in our immediate twin demands
to bring back the HK$3670 MAW for FDWs and the abolition
of the levy. We shall continue to pursue this campaign
alongside the rest of the issues that violate the rights
and wellbeing of migrant workers.
We welcome comments from the signatories and hope that
this critique may urge them to consider reviewing the
position they have taken. Having in mind the interest
of the migrant workers and their movement, we look forward
to your response. #
>> Read CMR
Joint Position Paper on Wage and Levy
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