MANILA, Philippines—The Legislative Council of Hong Kong has voted to exclude an estimated 240,000 foreign workers from its Statutory Minimum Wage law, it was learned over the weekend.
In a statement, Dolores Balladares, spokesperson of the Asian Migrants Coordinating Body, said this decision makes “slavery, marginalization, poverty, and discrimination” legal in the former British colony.
Balladares’s organization, which includes Indonesians, Filipinos, and other Asians, has been at the forefront of pushing for a legislated minimum wage for all workers in Hong Kong, locals and migrants alike.
“This legislation is supposed to be a victory of the workers in Hong Kong but the Executive Committee and pro-capitalist members of the LegCo have derailed this victory through our exclusion as well as advocating for a less than livable rate for the minimum wage,” Balladares said.
Excluding foreign workers from the law is effectively reducing their status as non-HK workers and “thus are slaves,” she added.
Balladares said among those who voted against migrant workers in Hong Kong was a legislator identified with a trade union federation.
“They mouth democracy but trample on the economic and social rights of those who already receive less in this society. They call themselves workers but allow other fellow workers to be treated less. Migrants and the HK people know who you are now: You are a shame to democracy and working class solidarity,” she said.
Balladares said the law makes their wages “insecure and vulnerable to the whims of the HK government.”
“To them, we are disposable workers whose rights can always be discarded,” she said.
Balladares said her group shall take on all available means to challenge the decision, including the possible filing of a judicial review against the exclusion. She said her group will also send protest letters and petition to the international community including the International Labor Organization and the United Nations to expose the discrimination and slave-like treatment of migrant domestic workers by the Hong Kong government.
“This decision should be exposed as an international shame. Slavery and discrimination is alive in Hong Kong and, worse, has become institutionalized,” she said.