Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Power of togetherness

One thing that amazed me the most during my interaction with migrant women here in Hong Kong is the role and the power of organizing.

We know that the right to organize is the basic right of all workers. Much of the history of modern labor movement revolves around the struggle for the recognition of labor unions.

The right to unionize has also been the important achievement for migrant domestic workers in Hong Kong. Since the establishment of the first union, Asian Domestic Workers Union (ADWU) in 1989, the unionization of migrant workers is legally protected under the Hong Kong law.

Now there are quite a few number of unions representing migrant domestic workers in Hong Kong; ODWU, FDWU, IMWU, UNDW are some of the examples. It took me some time to learn these acronyms and differentiate one from the other – and frankly, I still get some mixed!
These unions have gained the official membership in Hong Kong’s general trade union as well.

There are also numerous non-union type of organizations of domestic workers. Although they are not members of trade unions, some of them are very active in demonstrations, such as the recent protests against the exclusion of domestic workers from the statutory minimum wage law.

My question is, how would you assess the actual effects of being in unions or organizations on women’s empowerment.

2 comments:

  1. Interesting. Possibly a PAE question. : )

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  2. Thank you (Irene? or Nancy?) for the feedback and encouragement! I do hope that my project can somehow turn into a PAE!

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