I am saddened, but not one bit suprised, by this. Courtesy of Hemlock:
As I shut the window and turn up the air-conditioning, the two Filipino elves let themselves in. They are carrying various provisions essential at this time of year, from bug spray to Pimms, as per instructions left under a refrigerator magnet a few days ago. After dumping them in the living room, the pair move on to the kitchen and unwrap a bag of mysterious herbs, which they are soon grinding up with a mortar and pestle. A few minutes later, they are squeezing the pungent white juice from this mixture into a small bowl. Out comes a small box full of sharp bamboo needles. The elves patiently dip the needles into the poison and leave them to dry for a few minutes. They then put them back in the box, which they strap to a six foot-long, thin canvas bag containing a blowpipe.
Someone is in big trouble, and he is Labour and Welfare Secretary Matthew Cheung, whose sad duty it is to announce that Hong Kong’s forthcoming minimum wage will not apply to dark-skinned foreigners who toil 14 hours a day, six days a week, washing, cleaning, nursing and picking up for the Big Lychee’s middle-class families for under US$500 a month.
He doesn’t use this exact phraseology. He calls them ‘live-in domestic workers’. In other words, he is not discriminating – the new law will not apply to local live-in house servants either. But when was the last time anyone saw one of those women in their black pyjama pants and long ponytail, shopping in the market or escorting kids to school? I think the Museum of History in Kowloon has some grainy film footage of one. After much panicky searching for some other non-foreign category of worker to exclude from this wage protection, relieved officials have come up with student interns.
Now I have to admit, that if I were ever fortunate enough to be able to live in Hong Kong–and employed with the right salary, I would probably have myself a live in maid too-especially when the government was explicitly committed to preserving my "right" to exploit the inability of any Filipino governement to do anything about the poverty in their home country that drives these women to work in these conditions.
And, it would probably make it not as much fun to visit Hong Kong as well, if when I visited, I was no longer to perform acts of kindness and charity in pursuit of augmenting their lifestyle on Sunday afternoons.
Nonetheless, if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck-its probably is discrimination a duck. Not to worry though-the Hong Kong government has a clever dodge to make all on the up and up:
This is important, because somewhere along the line Hong Kong has acquired laws against racial discrimination, and certain well-meaning do-gooder troublemakers have been itching to get the courts to decide whether separate treatment for domestic helpers is racist.
The repercussions could be interesting. If the yet-to-be-decided minimum wage were HK$25 an hour, a domestic helper could be looking at a 150% pay rise. If enforced, which obviously it wouldn’t be, many families would send their maids back to poverty in the Philippines or Indonesia, and the wife would go from full-time to part-time paid work and pick up the domestic chores. Everyone gets poorer.
(Under the Government’s nightmare scenario, the courts would also rule that maids with more than seven years’ employment here are eligible for permanent residency, though our bureaucrats are confident that they have the relevant loopholes plugged. God forbid that our 95% Chinese population be diluted with happy, hard-working, reasonably educated, brown people who can speak better English.)
Still, the prospect of doubled pay is too tempting to think critically about, so domestic helpers will be marching on 1 July and gunning for Matthew Cheung. They are likely to be disappointed. The interns will come to the rescue to prove that the legislation is colour-blind. Anyway, judges hire maids too, and unlike the Company Gwailo at S-Meg Holdings they dare not infringe the law by hiring other people’s helpers on a cheaper and more practical part-time basis. At – in my case – a minimum-wage-multiplying HK$50 an hour.
Over to you , Gloria, for comment. ( Sound of crickets chirping ensues…..).