A coalition of unions has demanded a 30 per cent pay rise for Hong Kong’s domestic workers. This would increase their salaries to HK$6,500 (US$833) a month. The groups also asked for their food subsidies to be doubled.
The Hong Kong Federation of Asian Domestic Workers Unions on Sunday blamed government policy for having left many of the city’s 370,000 helpers in a “hungry and malnourished” condition. Federation representatives raised the demands at a meeting with Labour Department officials.
“The value of our work and our contribution to the economy has to be reflected in our wages,” federation chairwoman Phobsuk Gasing said.
“So many women in Hong Kong are able to pursue their careers because we take responsibility for household duties and care work. Inflation affects our families too, and token adjustments to the [minimum wage] are insulting.
“It is basically like almsgiving.”
The minimum wage for foreign domestic workers was raised to HK$4,990 a month last year, up from HK$4,870. Employers must provide their helpers with free food, or they can choose to pay an allowance of not less than HK$1,236 a month.
The federation said pay rises had failed to keep pace with inflation, so domestic workers were making less now in real terms than 20 years ago.
It cited its research that Hong Kong’s median monthly wage had gone up by 116 per cent since 2004, outpacing the accumulated 70 per cent inflation rate. But the minimum wage for domestic workers had only increased by 53 per cent, which resulted in a loss of 17 percentage points in real purchasing power.
Federation secretary Rowena Borja said the food subsidy, which averaged about HK$40 a day, was so low that it was insufficient to buy products that could cover baseline adult nutritional requirements.
“We are working abroad to send money home to our families. But now we are doing the same work for less pay. And it goes against the very principle of the [minimum wage] if we need to spend our salary to eat in Hong Kong,” Borja said.
“What can you buy with HK$40 for the whole day?”
The federation said these policies had resulted in a “silent famine” among helpers.
The coalition demanded that the government increase the minimum wage to HK$6,500 a month and the food allowance to HK$2,700.
It also urged the government to set “meal standards” for helpers, to avoid employers offering substandard food or whatever they wanted to provide, citing as an example “a single slice of bread for a meal”.
The coalition comprises the Hong Kong Domestic Workers General Union, the Thai Migrant Workers Union, the Union of Nepalese Domestic Workers in Hong Kong, the Overseas Domestic Workers Union, the Progressive Labour Union of Domestic Workers and the Union of United Domestic Workers.
About 368,000 overseas domestic helpers worked in Hong Kong last year. Some 55 per cent were from the Philippines, while about 42 per cent were from Indonesia.
