Migrant workers seen as ‘disposable goods’ with plan to send terminated ones away, groups claim

August 23, 2020

Two foreign domestic workers sit by a footbridge near Fa Yuen Street in Mong Kok. (COURTESY: fdh.labour.gov.hk)

Some migrant groups called out the Labour and Welfare Bureau’s move to make foreign domestic workers leave Hong Kong should the termination of their contract fall under “suspicious” circumstances.

The Asian Migrant Workers Union in a statement said the bureau aimed to “condition” the public against domestic helpers, to eventually exclude them from plans against the spread of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in the city.

“We are extremely angered with the way HKSAR government is treating the migrant domestic workers, like disposable goods, [especially] under the current COVID-19 pandemic,” the AMWU said.

The organization also pinned the blame on the Indonesian and Philippine governments for the plight of Hong Kong migrant workers. It said their policies forced workers to stay in boarding facilities run by employment agencies.

Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor earlier raised concern over the infection clusters within these boarding houses. The labour bureau had been testing domestic workers in these facilities since Aug. 9 and received over 1,800 samples—where only one tested positive for the virus.

Dolores Balladares-Pelaez, chairperson of the United Filipinos of Hong Kong, said on Saturday the bureau’s plan is tantamount to deportation. She explained the move was worse than the policy to have new employers within two weeks once terminated and to obtain an approved working visa.

“Workers have no more time to defend themselves why they are ‘suspiciously terminated,'” Balladares said.

Balladares-Pelaez added that while she also welcomes the plan to test domestic workers for coronavirus before they start work with their new employers, they should not be singled out as virus carriers.

Labour Secretary Dr. Law Chi-kwong on Friday said the rate of coronavirus infection of a domestic worker is lower than that of the general public.

The plan to ask migrant workers with “suspicious” cases to leave the city aimed to shorten their stay in agency-run dormitories. They also planned to fast-track the visa applications of cases they deemed “straightforward.”