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Journey
to My Home: Hong Kong and China Rediscovering the Meaning of Labor Activism, Being Chinese and Chinese Nationalism By: Lee Siu Hin |
Part Four: Labor in Hong Kong & China 101
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| Photo: The model shown an typical American-owned factory in China--from right, the first building is office and research center, the long building is assembly plant, the tall building at far left is workers dormitory. |
Sweatshops in Hong Kong exist not only
for economic reasons but also political reasons. Their existence is directly
attributable to the Cold War. In order to understand labor conditions
in China, we must first understand the relationships between Hong Kong,
Taiwan, Chinese Americans, the United States, Shenzhen city, the Pearl
River delta area, and China.
After World War II, at the height of the Cold War and during China's Cultural
Revolution of the 1960's-70's, millions of migrants fled to Hong Kong
from China for economic and political reasons. Hong Kong needed more jobs
and the Tai Pans needed more money, so the colonial government started
a push for industrialization in the 1960's, mainly light and labor-intensive
industries such as toys, garments and cheap electrical appliances.
Although it may be a "new discovery" for many Americans, it's
common knowledge for Asians: at the end of World War Two, when the Cold
War began, the Anglo-western powers once again used a "carrot and
stick" policy to reward those who were pro-western, and acted brutally
against the newly independent former colonies, the socialist countries
or Soviet Bloc, and the nationalistic countries who opposed western imperialist
power.
Just like the "Marshall Plan" in western Europe after the war,
the purpose of which was to create a "rich" western Europe vs.
a "poor" Eastern Europe/Soviet Bloc, in Asia the U.S. and other
western powers did the same thing. In Asia, they needed to create several
showroom wealthy pro-western countries like Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan
and Hong Kong: the so-called "Four Little Dragons," to compete
against the poor and "totalitarian" communist countries such
as China, North Korea and Vietnam. Hong Kong and Taiwan, by historical
"accident" just then setting out on the path to industrialization,
were perfect pawns for the West in this game.
When I was a kid in the 1970's the working conditions in Hong Kong's factories
were horrible and inhumane. In order to keep costs down and raise output,
the factories always sub-contracted their work out, to subcontractors
and even to sub-sub-contractors (usually as a family unit). I saw this
many times with my own eyes: it was common for a family of 6, living in
a 150-sq ft house in a slum, to get a work order from a factory to "process
their work." This was low-paid work such as assembling flowers, silk
labels, etc. The entire family, from the children to grandma, would sit
together in this tiny house and work overnight to finish the work and
send it back to the factory. They could not stop, because this was the
only income for the family.
The colonial government and the industrial elites didn't like unions,
especially the labor movement organized by the left. Instead, the colonial
government's propaganda to create general social attitudes favorable to
the wealthy elite simply put forth a justification of the exploitation:
- You are poor because you are uneducated/you have problems, and this
is the only job you can (or deserve to) perform;
- You can get this job because we are doing you a favor;
- Work hard and don't complain, and some day your life will be better-you
can live just like us.
When I was in Hong Kong and the topic came around to labor rights, some
people would try to justify sweatshops to me:
- "I used to be dirt poor, living in the slum and working my ass
off; then I finally earned the status I have today. Those people are poor
and uneducated, and need to work like I did; that's just the way it is."
- "They (the workers) came from civil war area or lived under a corrupt
government. Thank God we are living here (Hong Kong), and they are the
few lucky ones who can come here to get a job to work for us."
If you want to understand Hong Kong's culture of labor exploitation, you
don't need to look further than the tens of thousands of Filipina maids
working in Hong Kong.
They are "permitted workers," hired from employment agencies
in the Philippines and sent to Hong Kong on contracts. Currently, there
are approximately one hundred thousand Filipina maids in Hong Kong. If
one assumes an average Hong Kong family has four members, that means one
in seven families in Hong Kong has a full-time maid doing tedious housework
like cooking, cleaning, baby-sitting and even helping her employer's business,
for an average of HKD $3700 per month (USD $475), just around half of
the lowest wage job in Hong Kong anyone is willing to take.
The phenomenon of Filipina maids is a product of the Cold War, since export
labor is the Philippines' key export revenue and foreign revenue source
(millions of Filipino workers send billions of dollars back to their home
every year).
Like many other typical middle-class families, my brother's family employs
a Filipina maid. I never had a maid before, so I always felt very strange
when she called me "sir," as in "yes sir", "let
me do it, sir." She cooks, cleans and takes care of my niece and
nephew.
These maids are some of the unknown heroes of the 1980's and 90's economic
boom in Hong Kong, helping their middle-class "elite" white-collar
professional or business families be free from housework so they can make
more money.
But when the Hong Kong economy went bad in the Asian financial crisis
seven years ago, Hong Kongers did just what Americans do: blamed everybody
else but themselves. These days Filipina maids in Hong Kong have become
a hot issue, with much finger pointing at those Filipino "foreigners"
stealing jobs and money from Hong Kong, with some rhetoric suggesting
that they be expelled and sent back home, and some arguing they should
receive only half of their current wages.
In a recent on-line discussion in Hong Kong about the Filipina maids,
someone said: "BEST WAY TO CUT UMEMPLOYMENT. SEND ALL PHILIPPINOS
INDONESIANS HOME" (original quotation with hyphen), and another offered
this "bright" idea: "We are forced to pay $3670 ($470 USD
per month). Should the government release the limitation, I shall only
pay 1670 ($214 USD per month) and spend the $2000 so saved in Hong Kong
rather than remitting them to the Philippines."
Since the late 70's when China's Deng Xiao Ping began to call for economic
reform, the Chinese government, hungry for foreign investment and desirous
of opening the door to U.S. trade, reduced regulations to allow the Hong
Kong manufacturing and tourism industries to invest in China, mainly in
the 100 km radius Hong Kong-China border region of the Pearl River Delta
area, whose cities include Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Dongguan and so on.
For the next 25 years, the Pearl River Delta area become the world's most
important light-industry center, and along with Fujian (light industry)
and the Shanghai & Beijing areas (heavy and high-tech industries)
it is now one of China's major export industrial centers.
Many Hong Kong and Taiwanese entrepreneurs moved their entire assembly
lines from their hometown to the Pearl River Delta area, to cut labor
costs. However, they also brought their culture of exploitation to China:
since they never allowed unions back home, they were'nt going to allow
unions in China either. At first they hired workers from the local area,
then later from all across China.
Today, there are thousands of factories in the Pearl River Delta area,
mainly owned and run by Hong Kongers, Chinese Americans and Taiwanese,
and their products are mainly exported to the U.S. and Europe. If you
go to K-Mart, Wal-Mart or Target and buy a product made in China, it was
most likely made in the Pearl River Delta area (for example, the beads
people throw during Mardi Gras are mainly produced in several factories
in Dongguan).
Currently there are over 8 million Ming Gong (migrant workers) in Shenzhen
and another 4 million in Dongguan just 50 km away, and this doesn't include
another several million in nearby cities and towns. They come from all
across the country, young people from the poor rural areas of central
and western China.
With some luck, I was able to talk to the Chinese manager of one of the
biggest American-owned semi-conductor companies in Shenzhen, located in
a industrial park in the Baoan district, 25 minutes from downtown Shenzhen.
Just opened three years ago, they currently employ 1600 workers, with
a labor breakdown as follows: low and mid-level technicians are Chinese
college-level students; most upper-level technicians and managers are
overseas Chinese from Taiwan, Malaysia and so on. The workers on the assembly
lines are Ming Gong hired from across China, and by far the majority of
them are young women in their early twenties.
The working conditions in this factory are considered good. Like most
companies who hire Ming Gong, they provide housing and food for free,
eight people per room.
Still, pay is the issue. According to what one of the Chinese managers
told me, the average monthly pay for a production line worker is between
600 to 800 RMB ($75 to $100 USD). Chinese technicians get 3000 RMB ($375
USD), but compare that with the managers from outside China, who receive
$3000 - $4000 USD per month, plus private housing, child education tuition
(to send their children to the foreign student school in Shenzhen), and
other allowances, up to another $5000 USD.
As a senior Chinese manager, he only earns $250 USD per month. "The
management teams for the factory are hired from the U.S., and they get
$5000 USD per month, plus hardship pay, housing expenses and expenses
for their spouse and their children to go to the local foreign workers
school, but we only get $250. It's not fair."
Although this is an American company, there are no white Americans working
here. "The Americans only come at the beginning to set up the factory
and the office. Then they replace them with local (Chinese) technicians
since their pay is much cheaper, to save costs," the Chinese manager
told me.
Part Five: Labor in
Hong Kong & China 201