VICTORY! against Wage Cut for Migrants in Hong Kong


PRESS STATEMENT
31 January 2002


VICTORY!


Every Chinese, during this time of the year, prays for good luck and good fortune. Today we achieved a good fortune but it had never been because of luck. We won over a seemingly insurmountable enemy. For this year, there shall be NO WAGE CUT!

When we started our campaign against the proposal to cut our wages from 15-30%, we only had our 1999 wage cut campaign experience to arm us. Experience backed by the spontaneous anger against the injustice that the Hong Kong government was set to heave upon us. Experience borne out of our desire to survive amidst the crisis sweeping Hong Kong and our own respective countries. An experience that we harnessed and wielded to gain more lessons. An experience that blossomed and bore fruits for us.

Nothing is sweeter than a victory achieved through collective and sustained actions.

Only two months ago, the Asian Migrants Coordinating Body (AMCB) led more than 2,000 Asian migrant workers to the streets to express our indignation over the twin attacks of the Hong Kong government to the rights and wellbeing of Foreign Domestic Helpers (FDHs). We were one in our call to defend our livelihood and that of our families. No amount of economic mumbo-jumbos and distorted logic dissuaded us from pushing through with our campaign.

Two weeks after, we again exhibited our unity to mark the International Human Rights Day and the International Migrants Day as a celebration of our struggle. Our campaign reverberated throughout Hong Kong and the international migrants community. Even our respective governments were forced to take some actions as they saw the magnitude of our indignation.

We greeted the year 2001 with a bang and it carried through up to our January 13 mass action that mobilized almost 3,000 migrant workers - unprecedented in the history of the migrants movement in Hong Kong.

Our struggle did not only claim the streets but even went further into the halls of the Hong Kong government and the governments of our respective countries. We sent out our demands and echoed it in the dialogue that the HK government called for. We lobbied relentlessly and we gained more advances in our campaign. We also reached out to the local community - workers, employers, local domestic workers, and peoples organizations - to further fortify our ranks.

For this Chinese New Year, we have so much to celebrate. We celebrate our triumph against the wage cut. We celebrate the strengthening of the unity of the AMCB and the Asian migrant workers. We celebrate the forging of our ties with the Hong Kong local community. We celebrate the solid strength of our organizations that we have gathered in our campaign. And we celebrate the lessons that we have experienced in this rewarding and continuing struggle.

Attacks to our rights and wellbeing have not ceased. The proposal to ban live out employment arrangement is still ongoing. Wage cut proposals shall still hound us Hong Kong reels from its economic crisis. Anti-migrant policies shall be made. But these we shall face with militance, vigilance, and oneness of stand.

We must transform our victory into more victories for migrant workers. We must advance our unity into higher unities. We must increase our ranks further to reach out to the broadest number of migrant workers. We must sustain our strength for only then can we continue with our struggle.

The AMCB congratulates us all for the work we did. Indeed, nothing can be sweeter than a year marked by our victory and our commitment to surge forward the Asian migrants movement.


Long live the Asian migrant workers!
Long live international solidarity!



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Asian Migrants Coordinating Body (AMCB)
Members:
Association of Sri Lankans (ASL)
Assosiasi Tenaga Kerja Indonesia (ATKI)
(Association of Idonesian Migrant Workers)
Far-East Overseas Nepalese Association (FEONA-HK)
Friends of Thai (FOT)
United Filipinos in Hong Kong (UNIFIL-HK)

8/F., Room 801C, Witty Commercial Bldg.,
1A-1L Tung Choi St., Mongkok,
Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR
Tel no(s): (852) 2810-4379, 2388-7554, 2718-6498, 9608-1475, 9096-8902
Fax no(s): 2526-2894, 2626-9396
E-mail: amcb@hongkong.com
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