Women Workers Under the Trend of Casualization

From the mid-1980’s onwards, Hong Kong has transformed itself from a manufacturing centre to a global financial and sourcing hub. Relative to other Asian countries, the ‘de-industrialization process’ in Hong Kong has been drastically fast and extensive. Employment in the manufacturing sector dropped from 35.8% of total employment in 1986 to a mere 9.7% in 2006, with a loss of 621,000 jobs.¹ The majority of the discarded workers were semi-skilled middle-aged women workers. 

Many middle-aged women workers being displaced from manufacturing industries now constitute a large percentage of reserve labour for the growing service sectors. The number of working women in the manufacturing sector dropped from 431,752 in 1986 to 104,576 in 1999, and 72,408 in 2004.² These 359,434 women workers displaced from the manufacturing sector are middle-aged and low skilled. The hidden unemployed women become ‘discouraged workers’³ and become classified as ‘housewives’ in official statistics, thus becoming invisible. Many female workers end up as manual workers in public housing estates, offices, restaurants, and fast-food chain shops – in other words, in the lower strata of the service sectors.⁴

Overall, the employment conditions for women have continued to deteriorate. There is a trend of longer working hours and suppressed wages in full-time employment and at the same time, casualization and reliance on part-time workers are other trendy modes of employment. Casual workers are defined by the Hong Kong government as workers who are employed on a day-to-day basis or for a fixed period of less than 60 days. According to the statistical data from the government, the number of casual employees in 2009 is over 225,000 persons, occupying 7.2% of the total working population of 3,125,000. It represents a rise of 6% when compared with year 2002. The rise in casual work is mainly because of the loophole in the Employment Ordinance which exempts employers from being responsible for their social benefits.

Part-time work has also been on the rise: the number of part-time workers has increased by 32%, from 82,000 in 1997 to 182,000 in 2004. The percentage of part-time workers against the whole working force increased from 2.8% to 5.5%. The government defines part-time workers as those who have a fixed number of work days per week and work less than five days a week or less than six hours a day, or who have no fixed number of working days per week but work less than 30 hours per week.

Aside from the failure to be covered by benefits, part-time and casual workers who already have low incomes have been suffering from lack of an hourly minimum wage. Until this year, in Hong Kong there has been no statutory minimum hourly wage for the territory; there has only been a monthly minimum wage applicable to Foreign Domestic Helpers only. This will change this year, however, after years of struggle by Hong Kong unions, as the government has already legislated a statutory hourly minimum wage –which will include all local workers but exclude live-in domestic workers (over 99% of whom are Foreign Domestic Helpers). 

Casualized Work Excluded from the Labour Law Protection

As mentioned above, casual workers are on the rise and are unprotected by Hong Kong’s labour law. The existing Employment Ordinance provides labour protection and benefits entitlement for only employees who work at least 18 hours a week for a continuous period of four weeks (‘4.18’). These benefits include paid maternity leave, sick leave, holidays, rest day, redundancy compensation, etc. Employers can save a lot of workers by hiring workers who work less than the time period defined in this Ordinance (‘4.18’), and who are thus not entitled to any protection by it. 

In many cases, employers try to escape responsibility by setting terms of employment that explicitly stipulate 17.5 hours of work every four weeks, or termination for one week after working for 3.5 weeks, resulting in many new casual work patterns and serious exploitation. Thus, the loophole of the Labour Law has indirectly been increasing casual work. Despite years of labour groups including Hong Kong Women Workers’ Association (HKWWA) protesting to the government to patch up this loophole, the Hong Kong government has taken no serious legal measures to address it.

From left to right: Meilin Wu, HKWWA Coordinator; two sales promoters wearing masks; and two researchers, at a press conference to announce the survey results and the recommendations of HKWWA and the promoters. Photo: HKWWA

Strategies of Organizing Casualized Promoters

Women workers of Hong Kong are the destined losers in the globalization process. With economic restructuring and casualization, increasing numbers of women are relegated from the formal sector to the informal sector – as irregular workers in and out of employment in different industries. Such an employment pattern further erodes women’s identity as workers, which hamper their potential for organizing under conventional trade unions.  

As a women workers’ organization, HKWWA sees that we have unique and important roles to play – to empower the women workers to voice their needs, and to bring about changes to their situation through collective effort.

Thus, organizing casualized women workers continues to be our priority; and one of our main focuses now is organizing retail sales promoters. Thus our strategies now include: 

1. Focusing on organizing sales promoters in supermarkets and continuing visits to them there, to cultivate a sense of commonality and to address specific needs and problems, and work out relevant strategies. 

2. Initiating research on the working situations of promoters and publicizing the report, to arouse the concern of the society. 

3. Adopting a community organizing approach, which takes into account the multiple identities of the casualized sales promoter – as a worker who is deprived of due labour benefits as stipulated by the Labour Ordinance, such as statutory rest days, paid holidays, sick leave, and redundancy payments; and as a mother and a resident of a community.

4. Organizing propaganda activities in communities in order to deliver information and support. A Mobile Information Team visits sales promoters regularly. The content of exchange and information disseminated is not confined to just working conditions and labour laws, but also issues and resources related to family, childcare, and the workers’ or residents’ own health. 

5. Conducting a hotline service on the labour law and family issues, and supporting the workers to address their disputes at the Labour Tribunal, their housing problems and their family issues.

The following are HKWWA’s proposed policy recommendations for the casualized workers:

1. The Government should review and revise the ‘4.18’ definition of continuous employment under the Employment Ordinance, in order to provide employment protection for women in casual employment.

2. The Government should set up a statutory minimum wage system to ensure a decent living for low-income workers.

3. The Government should establish a universal retirement protection system for all citizens, particularly for the low-income women and homemakers.

4. Subsidized traffic allowance should be granted to the workers when they have to work in other areas far from their homes.

Endnotes

1. Oxfam Hong Kong, Policy Paper, 2007.
2. Census and Statistics Department (2005) Hong Kong Annual Digest of Statistics, p. 23.
3. Chan, Kam Wah & Leung, Lai Ching (1999) Women in and out of work: a research report. Hong Kong: Department of Applied Social Studies, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Young Women’s Christian Association.
4. The service sector (in Hong Kong) is composed of following industries: retail and wholesale, import and export trade, catering, transportation, communication, financial, real estate, commercial, social and personal services.