Unions on the same track
Pressure groups share views about
solutions to high unemployment rate
By Kwok Kar Po
While labour unions and political parties urge a halt to labour importation, and while the unemployment rate is running as high as 3.5 percent, labour unions are looking for solutions.
Most of the imported labourers are skilled workers skilled construction workers such as steel workers. Mr. Lau Chin Shek, the president of the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions, said labour importation is the root of increasing unemployment.
“The construction of the airport requires a large amount of labour. The employers should reserve those jobs for local workers.
“Employers prefer imported workers because these workers accept lower pay, longer working hours and more intensive work. Local workers therefore lose their ground to bargain a reasonable pay and lose their jobs,” said Mr. Lau.
Mr. So Yiu Cheong, a member of the Grass Root Rights Cooperative, said the government and the contractors’ labour importation scheme is cheating the workers.
“The government and capitalists emphasize the large number of vacancies; and manufacturers threaten to move their factories to mainland China if the importation scheme is banned,” said Mr. So. “They want workers to cut down their salary requirements. The only vacancies left are those low-paid jobs. Workers have no choice but taking up these jobs,” he added.
He suggested the government to set rule on the minimum wage of the workers and maintain wages at an acceptable level.
“The imported labourers have done nothing wrong. They are also stripped by employers, and discriminated against by local workers. They are victims as well,” said he.
Mr. Leung Yiu Cheung, executive officer of the Neighbourhood and Workers Service Centre, said the government lacked a thorough supervision of salaries of imported labourers.
He suggested that the influx of cheap and even illegal workers took away job opportunities from local workers and so must be stopped.
Mr. Leung also criticized the job training programmes run by the government.
“Those programmes last for just a few hours to several days. Workers still cannot build up confidence on the new job. Other countries provide full-time training programmes for at least six months,” Mr. Leung said.
He urged the government to set up a committee to look into the cause of the decline of some old industries and its long term development, and also to appropriate training programmes for local workers to meet the market demand.
He thought a cut in the government expense and tax rates would raise the investment interest in the local industry, and strengthen its competitivness with other Asian countries.
To increase employment, Mr. So thought that cooperatives are workable, as the workers could own the businesses themselves.
“We want to try and see how it works out. There are successful examples in other countries such as Spain. Now we find that cleaning service cooperatives in Hong Kong may work and we want to try and see how it works,” said he.
On the other hand, Mr. So did not mind that there were people who criticized them for being impractical.
He understood that workers are not that keen on setting up cooperatives or participating in union work, but they simply want to find a job.
Another member, Ms Lau Yuet Ming, explained that this idea was impractical at this stage just because the serious lack of resources of the Grass Root Rights Cooperative.
“But we will try and we hope to promote this idea to organizations with enough resources to try. In the long run, we believe the idea of cooperative is a way out.
“We believe the workers have enough strength to fight for themselves, so we emphasize their self-motivation to talk about and solve their problems on their own, rather than acting as leaders to represent them,” she said.
The Grass Root Rights Cooperative have held exhibitions in Tsuen Wan, delivered leaflets monthly, and provided the workers with information.
Mr. Lau agreed that the labour union has not achieved a lot in Hong Kong and he regarded the failure of the labour movement as the lack of the workers’ own voices in unions.
“Sometimes we can have celebrities to express discontent on behalf of workers. But we should not misuse this kind of stardom. Workers should stand up and strive for their own rights,” said Mr. Lau.
However, Mr. Lee Kai Ming, chairman of The Federation of Hong Kong and Kowloon Labour Unions and a newly elected legislative councillor, believed the work of labour unions was effective.
The federation had also demanded the Labour Department to sue employers violating the law of labour importation and the Immigration Department to prosecute illegal workers.
As the representative for the Labour Group in the Legislative Council, Mr. Lee believed in labour unions’ function in the fight for the rights of labourers.
He has urged the government to review the labour importation policy.
The optimistic Mr.Lee thought legislation will help to balance the benefits of the blue-collar workers and capitalists.
“The development of the economy and policies that protect workers should proceed in phase,” said Mr. Lee.
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