Group protests freeze in maids’ wages in HK

MANILA, Philippines — An organization of Asian migrant labor organizations Thursday denounced a Hong Kong government decision to freeze foreign domestic workers’ monthly wages at the current HK$3,580 (about P22,500) level.

The Hong Kong-based Asian Migrants Coordinating Body, which includes overseas Filipino workers’ groups, described the freezing of the minimum allowable wage (MAW) as a blow to domestic helpers and their families suffering from the hard economic times back home.

“Wage freeze is definitely not what foreign domestics want in this time of crisis. Considering the impact of the economic crunch on us and on our families, who can survive with a wage level that is even way below that of a decade ago?” ACMB spokesperson Eni Lestari said in a statement from Hong Kong.

Lestari said that since the “drastic” HK$400 wage cut in 2003, foreign maids have been demanding for a significant wage increase.

What was cut out in 2003 has not been fully recovered since the Hong Kong government has only increased the maids’ wages by HK$360, spread out in yearly increments until 2008.

“Before, they gave us a yearly pittance. Now with the wage freeze, they totally abandon any pretense of promoting what is right and just for foreign domestics,” she lamented.

With the wage freeze order came a directive pegging the minimum food allowance for foreign maids at HK$740 (about P4,600).

But the ACMB said the amount, though “long overdue” and a welcome improvement for those receiving such an entitlement, was still not enough for the maids’ everyday food needs.

“The amount only translates to about HK$25 (P157) per day, barely enough to buy a value meal at McDonalds! Nobody here can really survive with such an amount,” Lestari said.

She noted that the food allowance was not part of the wage that foreign maids wanted increased.

“Even the Hong Kong government has admitted that the majority of employers provide food for their foreign maids because they are ‘live-in’ employees. If the government thinks that we will be appeased by this sugarcoating of their essential decision to keep the current unjust wage level, they are badly mistaken,” she said.

Lestari said that ACMB and its affiliate migrant groups would stage a protest on Sunday to denounce the wage freeze decision.

She said that ACMB would continue to lobby for the inclusion of foreign domestics in the statutory minimum wage (SMW) coverage in time for the opening of the Hong Kong Legislative Council next month.

“This arbitrary, unjust and nontransparent fixing of the MAW is the very reason why we want to be part of the SMW. The HK government is again rehashing all their hodgepodge justifications for their decision after a deliberation process that only they know about,” Lestari said.

She said there was something fundamentally wrong with the MAW policy and it has to end.

“With the SMW, [foreign domestics] will be given more opportunity to lobby for our wages, free from the whims of the Hong Kong government,” Lestari said. –Jerome Aning, Philippine Daily Inquirer