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Hong Kong wage law omits domestics
Jakarta Globe - July 19, 2010
Ismira Lutfia & AP – The Indonesian Migrant Workers Union on Saturday protested Hong Kong's just-passed first-ever minimum wage law for excluding thousands of foreign live-in domestic helpers, including more than 100,000 Indonesians.
The law, passed on Saturday, sets no minimum wage yet, but it appears employers will be required to pay at least $3 an hour – far short of the $7.25 guaranteed to workers in the United States and the $9 in Britain, and low for one of the most expensive cities in the world.
The law, however, excludes Hong Kong's nearly 280,000 domestic workers, most of whom are Filipino or Indonesian, on the grounds that it is difficult to calculate their work hours given the round-the-clock nature of their jobs.
It also notes that domestic workers are promised benefits like housing, food, medical care and free travel to their home countries.
"The IMWU has protested the exclusion in the bill of a minimum wage for domestic workers," Ario Adityo, an activist from Hong Kong-based regional migrant worker watchdog Asian Migrant Center, told the Jakarta Globe.
The exclusion, he said, contradicted the law's initial aim to protect low-paid laborers, including domestic workers. About 136,000 Indonesians work as domestic helpers in Hong Kong with a minimum monthly wage of 3,580 Hong Kong dollars ($450).
Under pressure to address the city's widening rich-poor gap after a voluntary wage protection initiative failed, Hong Kong leader Donald Tsang started efforts to introduce a minimum wage in 2008.
Tsang can recommend a minimum wage level, which the legislature can approve or reject but can't amend. The law requires reviews every two years – instead of the annual review demanded by unions.
Tsang will only propose the minimum wage level in November. The current consensus ranges from the $24 Hong Kong dollars ($3) an hour backed by business interests to the $33 Hong Kong dollars demanded by unions. Hong Kong is one of the world's richest territories, with a 2008 per-capita GDP of $30,863, but is also among the world's most stratified economies.
Meanwhile, the Indonesian Consulate General in Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysia, announced on Friday that the Sarawak Timber Association had agreed to increase the minimum wage for the some 50,000 Indonesians working in the timber industry there by 20 percent to 12 Malaysian ringgit ($3.75) per day as of July 1.
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