Press Release
04 June 2007

Foreign domestics assert for substantial wage hike, abolition of levy
Score delay in annual MAW review 

We have waited long enough. It’s time for the government to give what is due to foreign domestic workers.

This was declared today by Eni Lestari as around 30 members of the Asian Migrant’s Coordinating Body (AMCB) staged a protest action at the Central Government Office to push the government to respond positively to their petition for a substantial wage hike to foreign helpers and the abolition of the levy.

The AMCB, a group of FDWs from Philippines, Indonesia, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Thailand, gave a submission to the government for for such demands last March.

“FDWs urgently need a substantial wage increase for it to have significant impact to our salary and outr situation. The previous wage hikes were so negligible as compared to the drastic wage cuts we suffered in the past compunded by the levy to our employers that was evidently taken from us ,” Lestari said.

The group scored the apparent delay in the release of the decision on the annual review of the Minimum Allowable Wage of FDWs. Lestari reported that previously, the government releases the results of the review on March or February. Last year, it was released in May.

“Now, it is still unclear when exactly the decision will be handed down. This shows the lack of transparency of the annual review that we have raised way before and until now remains unaddressed,” she added.

Lestari remarked that the dilly-dallying of the government on the wage petition of migrant workers shows a lack of concern of the government on their plight.

“It is long overdue. We need a wage increase now,” she asserted.

AMCB, in their petition contended that with the continued recovery of the Hong Kong economy, FDWs, who suffered two wage cuts amounting to HK$590, deserve a significant increase to their wage unlike the “pittance” that was given them in the previous years. The MAW was increased by HK$50 and HK$80 in 2005 and 2006, respectively.

“Until a favorable decision is given to the demand of migrant workers, we shall continue to assert what is right and just for us,” she concluded.