The Politics of Everyday Life among Foreign Domestic Workers in Hong Kong

Nicole Constable, 2007
for the upcomming publication Moira Zoitl – EXCHANGE SQUARE

Introduction

This essay is based on anthropological and ethnographic field research that I conducted among foreign domestic workers in Hong Kong between 1993 and 2007, spanning the late British colonial period through Hong Kong’s first decade as a Special Administrative Region (SAR) of the People’s Republic of China (-1-). My aims are threefold: first, to portray the significance of Hong Kong as a destination for migrant domestic workers; second, to convey a range of the experiences that are faced by foreign domestic workers in their employer’s homes; and third, to illustrate some key aspects of domestic worker political activism and some of the circumstances that propel domestic workers to take part in public demonstrations and protest actions.

I. Hong Kong: Home Away from Home for Migrant Domestic Workers

Elsa, a Filipina in her early twenties, left behind a low paying factory job in Manila to take up a job as a domestic worker in Hong Kong in 1979. Elsa’s sister Belle joined her in Hong Kong a year or so later. Both sisters worked on a series of two-year employment contracts, doing house cleaning, providing childcare and elderly care for expatriate and Chinese employers. Their work freed their employers from household duties, and since such duties were considered women’s responsibility, they enabled women employers to do more valued labor outside of the home, or to have more leisure time and to play the more prestigious supervisory role at home. Both sisters regularly sent a portion of their monthly salary home to their elderly parents in the Philippines. Their remittances helped to support their parents, their younger sisters, and their brother, providing money for food, for education, to rebuild their small house, for furniture and a television set, and to buy a small parcel of land and farm animals. In the late 1990s, Elsa and Belle returned to the Philippines for good. The news I received was that Belle had gotten married and had a child; Elsa was working as an activist in a migrant worker nongovernmental organization in Manila. By the time they returned to the Philippines, their younger sister had obtained a job as a domestic worker in Rome; Elsa and Belle had helped pay for her recruitment costs.

Elsa and Belle are but a small part of a large and ever growing pattern of global migration wherein women from poorer and less developed regions of the so-called Global South seek employment in the wealthier regions of the Global North. Filipinas and women of other nationalities, given the economic difficulties and the shortage of employment opportunities at home, leave their families behind in order to earn a better living elsewhere. Some of these women are trained as teachers; some have degrees in agriculture; some are journalists; some own businesses. Many of them are married and must – due to restrictions placed on temporary migrant workers — leave their spouses and children behind. Some are relieved to leave troubled marriages or broken families behind; others experience familial and marital strains that are exacerbated by their long absences. Many are young and single when they arrive in Hong Kong, and some have postponed the formation of their own families for so many years that they have given up on the prospect altogether. All are part of a much wider pattern of gendered global migration of women from poorer regions of the world to wealthier regions, to serve as care givers and maids, doing the gendered labor that local women no longer do. Meanwhile, other women back home take care of the children they have left behind, thus creating what Rhacel Salazar Parreñas has called a “chain of love.” (-2-)

Hong Kong is by any measure a modern and cosmopolitan city, what Saskia Sassen refers to as a “global city.” (-3-) This global city, which has become a symbol of world trade, and that refers to itself as “Asia’s World City,” reveals not only the global movement of capital, but also the global movement of people, from many walks of life and from many regions of the world, both rich professionals and poorer migrant workers. Hong Kong is considered a desirable destination for foreign domestic workers. It is reputed to be a beautiful, modern, and clean city; its wages and work conditions are considered far better than Singapore and Taiwan; and unlike Europe and Canada, it has the added benefit of being just a short flight away from the Philippines. Nevertheless, domestic workers come to Hong Kong on temporary visas and with two-year contracts; they do not have the option of becoming permanent immigrants or citizens.

Filipinas first began going to Hong Kong to work as “foreign domestic helpers,” (as they are officially called by the Hong Kong Government or less formally as “helpers” or “FDHs” by Hong Kong locals), in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The Hong Kong economy was thriving. As a major port and trade center, and as a gateway to mainland China, Hong Kong’s service economy had grown rapidly, and more jobs became available in banks, shops, hotels, and restaurants, as well as in shipping and construction. Jobs in factories that manufactured textiles and electronic goods, which had boomed in earlier decades, were especially popular among young and middle aged women with little education. Such jobs were much preferred over lower status work as “amahs” (maids or child care providers) in private homes. Meanwhile, Hong Kong people’s educational levels of increased, and Hong Kong women entered the service economy in growing numbers. As more local women entered the paid workforce, the household structures and responsibilities also shifted. Real estate was at a premium and the city was crowded with small high-rise flats. There was less room for large extended families and multi-generational households. In contrast to rural areas and earlier times, fewer grandmothers and close relatives were available to provide childcare and help with household work. Hong Kong’s social services, moreover, were insufficient to offset the growing needs for childcare, and local Chinese women at the time were loath to fill the role of amah in other people’s households.

The influx of Filipina domestic workers began gradually in the late 1970s and grew in the 1980s and 1990s as an ideal solution to the shortage in local household workers. Many of the first Filipina domestic workers to come to Hong Kong were employed by expatriates. They were especially in demand among expatriates because of their ability to speak English, in contrast to the few remaining older Chinese amahs who spoke no English and were less interested in working for foreigners. Lacking available and affordable childcare, Hong Kong locals soon followed suit and also began to hire foreign domestic workers from the Philippines. To Hong Kong locals, the English language ability of Filipinas was also a bonus. Many locals aspired for their children to learn better English as part of their ambitions for upward mobility in the British colony and Filipinas, although they spoke a more Americanized version of English, could help to tutor the children. As the recruitment of foreign domestic workers became more formal and institutionalized, involving legally binding employment contracts and formal channels of recruitment and employment, other nationalities of workers also gained some popularity.

By the time of my research in the early 1990s, many Hong Kong manufacturers were already taking advantage of the cheaper costs and wages in mainland China and had moved their factories across the mainland border. The Hong Kong’s economy was nevertheless remarkably strong, with an unemployment rate below 2 percent, and the market for foreign domestic workers was steadily growing. In 1993 there were over 120,000 foreign domestic workers in Hong Kong, including approximately 105,400 Filipina domestic workers, 7,000 Thai domestic workers, 6,100 Indonesian domestic workers and 2,100 Indian, Sri Lankan, Nepali and other nationalities of workers combined. The prediction was that Thai women might increase in number as the local complaints about the “demanding” and “spoilt” Filipinas grew. Unexpected at the time, was the vast and rapid increase in the number of Indonesian domestic workers during and since the 1990s. According to the Hong Kong Immigration Department, by December 2005 there were over 223,000 foreign domestic workers. The number of Indonesian domestic workers had increased to 97,000; there were 118,000 Filipinas. The number of Thai workers was at 4,500 and the number of other nationalities remained around 3,700. Although the number of Filipinas has dropped from a peak of 155,000 in 2001 (when the total number of foreign domestic workers was 235,000), their number seems to have remained around 120,000 for the last several years. Meanwhile the number of Indonesians has continued to grow (from 6,100 in 1993, to 25,000 in 1997, to 69,000 in 2001, to 97,000 in early 2006). These patterns warrant some wider explanations.

Labor migration from the Philippines to other parts of the world has a very long history, but most of it has involved male labor migration. The migration of women overseas to work as maids is more recent. By the 1990s, overseas contract workers, especially Filipina domestic workers, were officially hailed by the Philippine government as “economic heroes” who helped to resolve the nation’s problems of poverty, local unemployment and underemployment, and the Philippine international debt. In the 1990s, as the Asian Financial Crisis loomed, Indonesia also followed suit, establishing a labor export policy as a solution to local economic problems. Both countries increasingly promoted not only construction workers in the oil producing regions of the Middle East, but also domestic workers (or what the Philippine government has recently called “supermaids”) to parts of Asia and other regions of the world. By the end of the 1990s, Filipina domestic workers had migrated to Asian cities of Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, and in regions of the Middle East, Europe, Canada, and the United States. At first Indonesian women went to work mainly in the Middle East, Malaysia and Singapore, but in the 1990s they became increasingly popular in Hong Kong and Taiwan as well.

Hong Kong’s reunification with the People’s Republic of China on July 1, 1997, after 99 years of British colonial rule, took place amidst uncertainly about the region’s economy and governance. Some Chinese employers anticipated the possible influx of mainland women workers and many locals expressed concern about Hong Kong’s worsening economy. Several Filipinas I spoke to in 1995 and 1996 talked of returning home or migrating elsewhere: Taiwan was nearby, and Canada was considered a preferred destination. The Asian Financial Crisis of the late 1990s, followed by the outbreak of Severe Acquired Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in 2003, had a severe impact on Hong Kong’s service economy. Construction work slowed and tourism slumped. The unemployment rate grew to an all time high of 8.7 percent in 2003. Legal wages for domestic workers were decreased in 2003 by 11 percent to HK$3,270, far below the rates a decade earlier, and far below the peak of HK$3,860 in 1998. Within only a few months of the HK$400 reduction in monthly wages, on the grounds that employers could no longer afford to pay as much given Hong Kong’s economic difficulties, the Hong Kong government imposed a HK$400 per month levy on employers, ostensibly to be used for retraining of unemployed local women to become domestic workers. This levy was still a controversial issue in 2006 and was still facing legal challenges.
Foreign domestic workers still remain in Hong Kong and all indications are that they will remain there for many years to come. Their numbers remain much greater than the estimated number of local domestic workers. Local domestic workers (estimated at around 100,000 by Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Union officials) include former factory workers, recent mainland immigrants, and women who are the sole support of their households. Unlike foreign domestic workers who are legally required to “live in” with their employers, often in very close quarters, and to work full time for one employer, local domestic workers do not live with their employers, often work for one or several employers, and work for very few or many hours each week for an hourly wage.

Filipina domestic workers in Hong Kong are, as of 2006, still greater in number than Indonesian domestic workers. They tend to be older and better educated than Indonesian domestic workers. Whereas most Filipinas are in their late twenties, thirties, and older with at least a high school and often some college education, Indonesian workers are generally younger, in their twenties or early thirties, without college education, and often of rural origins. A high proportion of Filipinas have worked in Hong Kong for several two-year contracts, resulting in a deeper understanding and greater knowledge of Hong Kong and their rights as workers. On the whole, Indonesians have been there less long and are less savvy about the rules, regulations, and protections to which they are entitled. Unlike Filipinas, many Indonesian workers lack the ability to read and write in English, lack the knowledge of their rights as workers, and lack well-established support structures and networks. Recent large-scale surveys, anecdotes, and interviews with migrant worker activists and leaders, suggest that the overall work conditions for Filipina workers have improved significantly over the past decade. More Filipinas are paid the legal minimum wage or higher, fewer Filipinas suffer physical abuses than in the past, and although they still work long hours, they work fewer hours than was previously the case. Indonesians, however, are more likely to experience the difficulties that Filipinas faced a decade ago. In the early 1990s, the primary residents of domestic worker shelters were abused or unemployed Filipina workers; now they mostly serve as shelters for Indonesian women.

Some things have changed and others have remained the same since my research in the early and mid-1990s. Domestic work itself, as described in the following section, is largely the same. The nature of the work and the abuses that workers face, are largely the same, although the frequency of abuse is far less among Filipinas and greater among the newly arrived Indonesians. Activism has blossomed among Hong Kong locals as well as among Indonesian domestic workers. As noted above, the legal minimum wage for foreign domestic workers decreased over the past decade, justified by the slump in Hong Kong’s economy, but despite the economic difficulties faced by some Hong Kong locals, the need for foreign maids continues and is likely to continue into the foreseeable future.

II. Not a Member of the Family: Working in Other’s Homes

Fely, a Filipina in her late twenties when I met her in the home of her employer in the mid 1990s, felt very fortunate about her work situation. She lived in the small “servant room” of a modern and relatively spacious flat in a new high-rise housing complex in Discovery Bay, on the Island of Lantau, a short commute by ferry or hydrofoil from Hong Kong Island. Although Fely’s room was very small, located behind the kitchen, near the washing machine, and it lacked the amenities of the rest of the flat (such as air conditioning and a window), it was nonetheless comfortable and private. She was very happy with her own electric fan since she didn’t like air conditioning and was not used to it. Her employers allowed her to decorate the room as she pleased and to invite a friend over during her time off as long as they were not too loud. The household was small, including a couple in their thirties, the woman’s mother in her sixties, and a small child. Sometimes Fely expressed frustration about the “popo” (maternal grandmother or old woman) who usually stayed at home all day, watching over Fely as she cleaned and looked after the child, or when she corrected Fely’s manner of handling the child or cleaning the vegetables, but overall she felt quite fortunate when she listened to the stories of her friends and neighbors.

Some domestic workers Fely and I knew had no privacy, slept on the floor of the common room when the other household members had gone to sleep, or shared a room with an elderly parent or a young child. In some of the most egregious cases I had heard about at the Mission for Filipino Migrant Workers (now the Mission for Migrant Workers) one woman was forced to sleep on a narrow medical examination table, and another had been forced to sleep on the top of a high cabinet and had fallen and injured herself in the night). Some domestic workers experienced incessant shouting and criticism; hitting or physical abuse from their employers, and in some of the worst reported cases domestic workers have been hospitalized, suffering from severe critical injuries. Despite the legal requirement that they work for one employer in one home or household space, some workers are required by their employers to work in several flats and various locations for no additional pay. Some workers complain of not receiving their legal wages, of having deductions taken from their paychecks for unknown reasons, or for being forced to sign receipts for wages that they never received. Some had their passports confiscated, were deprived of a rest day, or were required to return home early on their day off to do more work. Often workers are afraid to talk back to their employers or to file an official complaint because they fear the loss of their jobs (and the wages their families depend on).

By comparison, Fely thought she had it easy. Her employers maintained some distance and they followed the rules stipulated in the employment contract. They drew a line between her role as worker and their role as employer, despite living together side by side, for almost five years. Although at times Fely felt lonely and longed for a closer relationship with them, she also reasoned (as did many other workers I spoke to) that it was better to maintain some safe distance and retain some privacy and autonomy than to face the possible additional demands and pressures of less professional employers. Her employers followed the employment contract regulations concerning a weekly rest day. On that day Fely enjoyed the time she spent with her friends, her sister, and her cousins at a Roman Catholic Church, for a picnic lunch of Filipino food in Statue Square, and often for a visit to a newly discovered market or to a shop that sold Filipino products. Most Sundays she returned home late in the evening and her employers rarely complained.

Foreign domestic workers in Hong Kong must live and work in the intimate spaces of other people’s homes. They live there, yet it is not their own home and often they do not feel “at home.” Some employers make an effort to treat a domestic worker “like a member of the family,” but as many scholars and observers have suggested, this can be a deceptively exploitative metaphor. One popular domestic worker joke that was circulating in the mid-1990s suggested that treating someone “like a member of the family” is often an excuse or a rationale that is used by the employer to require the worker to commit herself to remain at home and do all the work that is required of her, out of a sense of familial commitment, loyalty, obligation, and affection. The familial metaphor can serve to negate the notion of a domestic worker as an employee with contractual worker’s rights. The joke, as it was originally told to me, came up when a domestic worker came to the Mission for Filipino Migrant Workers to seek advice about her lack of days off and her long working hours. She was expected to wake up and care for an infant at all hours of the night and she was expected to remain at home to work voluntarily on her day off. After telling her story, one of the Filipina domestic workers said, “So you are a member of the family, too?” and all those around us began to laugh.

Seeking an explanation of the humor, I was told that this is the punch line of a popular joke. The original joke, which was no longer told, narrated a long tale of the employer’s expectations, and each expectation was followed by an assumption that the worker would willingly be exploited because she is “like a member of the family.” In contrast to Fely and other workers who worked hard long hours but were treated as contractual workers with clearly defined duties, the work of the domestic worker who is treated like a family member is expected to have no limits and boundaries and she is expected to work for low or minimal wages out of “familial obligation.”

Fely’s employers gave her a rather standard list of chores to do. She was responsible for cleaning floors, bathrooms, windows, doing the laundry (in the washing machine and some hand washing), ironing, watering potted plants, changing sheets and making beds, cleaning the kitchen and washing the dishes. Although she occasionally was asked to shop for groceries and wash and prepare the ingredients for a specific dish, she was never required to cook, because her employers preferred their own cuisine. She cooked very simple fare for herself because she did not like their cooking (which was too spicy for her taste). Fely took the child to the playground, and stayed with him when he visited with other children. She fed him, unless the grandmother or the mother preferred to do so themselves. Most days, she was up by seven, and because the couple ate dinner together quite late, after they returned home from Hong Kong Island by ferry, she usually finished the dishes and was ready for bed by 10 or 11 p.m. If the child awoke at night, the parents took care of him. Unlike other workers we knew, it was not her responsibility to tend to the child at all hours of the night. If she had finished all of her work, she was permitted to take a rest during the day, but she often felt uncomfortable doing so lest her employers think she was being lazy.

Other women were far less fortunate than Fely. In Maid to Order in Hong Kong I have described a number of different lists of chores that illustrate how demanding, controlling, and unreasonable some employers can be. In the early 1990s, I began to collect these lists. Some of the more egregious ones included chores assigned according to a timetable throughout the day, and some duties that are questionable as “domestic work.” One of the lists of rules I collected included the following:

• You are not allowed to rest and lean on sofa of parlour and your employer’s bed.

• A maid must always be polite and greet the employer, his family members, relatives, visitors as soon as meeting them by saying: good morning, good day, good afternoon, good evening, or good night (before going to bed), sir madam etc. Don’t forget to say thank you at appropriate times.

• Do not use any nail polish on fingers and toes, do not put on make up, even when you are going out to do the family shopping. Your hair must be short and tidy. do not wear tight jeans and pants and low-cut T-shirts while you are working. do not go to the parlour in pyjamas.

• Must take bath daily before going to bed. Hand wash your own clothes separately from those of your employers and the children (especially the under-wear), unless your employer allows you to wash your own clothes by the washing-machine together with theirs.

• You will be required to sleep and attend die baby and elderly, even during night time.

• Use separate towels for different purposes, such as a) sweeping floor, b) cleaning furniture, c) cleaning dining table, d) washing oily dishes, e) washing cups, f) washing basin, g) washing toilet; you should use separate towel for each purpose.

• Washing of car and caring for pets (e.g. dogs & cats) are part of your duties with no extra allowance.

• You give very bad impression to your employer if they see you chat­ting or laughing with your Filipino friends outside their house or down the street. Therefore, never gather with other Filipino maids near your living place, especially when you are bringing their kids down to the street to catch the school bus or going to the market.

• Do not write any letters during your working days, do it on your holidays.

Many lists of rules were aimed at controlling not only the worker’s labor and time, but also her body and her appearance, thus assuring that she “look like a maid.” Of the lists of rules I examined, some dictated the time of day when a worker must bathe; the length of her hair, her finger nails, her dresses and skirts; prohibited from wearing perfume, fingernail polish, and lipstick; prevented her from entering certain rooms or sitting in certain chairs; and forbade her from mixing her laundry with that of other members of the household. Such rules serve to underscore the status differences between the employer–who has free reign of the house, can come and go as she pleases, wear whatever she wants, and talk to whomever she chooses–and the domestic worker whose actions and movements are controlled and restricted by her employer as though she was an immature child.

When an employer becomes violent or intolerable, domestic workers often turn to their friends, neighbors, or to a variety of migrant worker organizations for help. If her contract has been terminated or she has been thrown out and has nowhere to stay, she will likely be referred to a domestic shelter for migrant workers. At two different domestic shelters for migrant workers I met many women who had been cheated or abused by their employers. The shelters provided them with food and a place to sleep, emotional support, companionship, and also guidance. In the context of such shelters many women gained a new understanding of their legal rights as migrant workers and the options for pursuing their own cases through the bureaucracy of labor tribunals. For many, the difficult experience yielded in a desire to assist others and to become more politically active and to work to support the rights of migrant workers.

III. Public Spaces and Political Activism

In the summer of 2005, I watched as fifty or so Indonesian domestic workers stood outside of the Indonesian consulate building holding banners and signs, protesting the recent death of Suprihatin, a young Indonesian domestic worker who had fallen to her death from the high-rise apartment in which she lived and worked. Whereas the Hong Kong authorities had deemed the death a suicide, and the Indonesian government had accepted this conclusion, the domestic workers, including some who had known the worker personally, were highly suspicious of the circumstances and demanded that their government reopen the investigation. The protest included prayers, songs, and speeches; a display of photographs of Supritatin laying bruised and battered in the hospital; and the depositing of an effigy of Suprihatin, covered by a batik cloth and flowers as if it were a funeral march, on the steps of the consulate building.

Upon my return to Hong Kong in 2005, after several years’ absence, several things struck me. One was the visible increase in the number of Indonesian domestic workers, another was the growth and visibility of migrant worker protests and demonstrations, and another was the noticeable increase in numbers of nongovernmental organizations and volunteer groups and associations for migrant workers.

In the course of the 1980s and 1990s I had witnessed dozens of domestic workers protests and marches, some made up of small groups of a dozen or more workers chanting and demonstrating with posters outside of a consulate, and some larger marches of a few hundred workers marching through Central District to the Hong Kong government offices. In the 1980s and 1990s, domestic workers’ protests concentrated on issues that had a direct impact on them as workers. For example, workers protested against forced remittances dictated by the Philippine government in the 1980s, they repeatedly protested against new fees imposed by the Philippine and Hong Kong government and by corrupt employment agencies in the 1990s. Throughout the 1990s some of the activist workers I knew marched for higher wages, and they repeatedly protested against the New Conditions of Stay. The New Conditions of Stay had faced strong opposition from domestic workers ever since they were introduced in 1987, especially the conditions referred to as the “Two Week Rule” that stipulated that domestic workers must return to their home country within two weeks of the termination of their contracts, preventing them from remaining in Hong Kong and discouraging them from seeking better employers.

By the time I returned to Hong Kong 2005 and 2006, domestic workers still protested tirelessly against the Two Week Rule (to little avail), and they protested the wage decreases even more vehemently than they had a decade earlier. Protests against the levy that had been introduced in 2003 received very wide-reaching support from many nationalities of domestic workers and massive numbers of migrant workers and migrant worker organizations, including many religious groups that normally steer clear of political issues, came out en masse to oppose the wage decrease and levy.
In December 2005, I observed hundreds if not thousands of domestic workers take part in the protest activities against the World Trade Organization’s ministerial conference that was being held in Hong Kong. The Anti-WTO protests illustrated both the new global concerns of domestic workers and the extent of their global coalitions and networks. As never before, these demonstrations placed domestic worker interests squarely within the context of global development, global inequalities, and corporate greed and government corruption. Workers spoke openly and articulately about their own position within the global labor market. As domestic workers explained, articulating their own critique of free trade, they are the low cost commodities that are traded for profit by their own countries. Several spoke of the lack of jobs at home, their inability to make a living at home, despite their training and their education.

In a vivid portrayal of their criticism of their own governments, in one part of the weeklong anti-WTO protests, domestic workers of several nationalities took part in a “Consulate Hopping and Hall of Shame Awards” protest. In front of the of the Philippine Consulate workers displayed a large cartoon version of Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in a bathing suit with a pitcher of milk pored over her. The chairperson of United Filipinos in Hong Kong presented a stand in for Arroyo the “Milkmaid Award” for “milking the maids” – for literally threatening the subsistence of their dependents and sucking them dry by charging excessive fees and relying on them to support the country. Two domestic workers, wearing plastic aprons and waving Hong Kong, United States, and Philippine currency presented the award to consular officials. At the Indonesian consulate a domestic worker played the role of President Susilo Bambang (“Bangbang”) Yudhoyono, while balancing two large burlap sacks of money on the backs of the two domestic workers in plastic aprons. Yudhoyono was presented with the “Rookie of the Year Award” by the chairperson of the Association for Indonesian Domestic Workers (ATKI-Hong Kong) for being the “rookie exporter of labor” second only to the Philippines as the “biggest exporter or cheap labor in Asia.” The protest proceeded to the Hong Kong Government House when Hong Kong chief executive Donald Tsang was presented with the “Edward Scissorhands Award” for cutting domestic worker wages and social services. This was followed by a visit to the United States consulate where a stand in for U.S. president George W. Bush wearing a top hat and dressed like Uncle Sam was presented with the “Terror Award.”

Another protest that I witnessed took place on July 1, 2006, the ninth anniversary of the reunification of Hong Kong with mainland China. Like the anti-WTO protest, this one was also striking because it involved more than just domestic workers. Whereas in the 1990s the protests I observed involved only domestic workers and a few social workers or activists who were closely affiliated with migrant workers organizations, the Anti-WTO protests drew thousands of other protestors besides domestic workers, including agricultural workers from abroad, local and foreign labor union activists, Korean farmers and fisher folk, workers from Hong Kong and elsewhere, etc. The July 1 protests involved mostly local Hong Kong people. In the morning thousands of locals took part in a celebration march amidst cheering, dancing, and singing in celebration of Hong Kong’s reunification with China and its liberation from colonial rule. In the afternoon were the protest marches. The participants were mostly locals, including many who expressed criticism of the Hong Kong and the mainland Chinese governments, and who demanded voting rights and democratization. Most interesting was that the protest march included a vocal and visible contingent of foreign domestic workers and other migrant workers, including Filipina, Indonesian, Thai, and Nepali migrant workers, waving banners from the AMCB (Asian Migrant Coordinating Body). They marched in support of the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions’ demand for a minimum wage for all Hong Kong workers, and also waved posters that formed the letters WISER. Each letter was contained within the circular section of the female symbol, and each letter stood for one of five demands: Worker’s rights, Increased wages, Social services, Employment protection, and Rights of workers.

Given the increase in frequency and the growing visibility of domestic worker protests and activism, it is important to ask how successful domestic workers have been in improving their work conditions. On balance, such activism has accomplished a great deal, although what has been accomplished is not all measurable in the expected ways. Many demands have remained unmet: the Two-Week Rule is still in effect, the levy was introduced, and wages are lower in the early 2000s than in the 1990s. Yet there have also been some significant measurable gains. Filipina domestic workers very recently successfully opposed a 2006 Philippine government attempt to increase the minimum age of domestic workers to twenty-five; instead it was set at twenty-three. Surveys by activist organizations suggest that Filipina domestic workers are far more likely to receive the legal minimum wage stipulated in their employment contracts than they were a decade ago, they work fewer hours than a decade ago, and they are less likely to suffer from physical abuse. Today, as noted above, since their work conditions have improved significantly, the residents of domestic shelters are less likely to be Filipinas. The situation of Indonesian workers, however, resembles that of Filipinas a decade or more ago. They are more likely than Filipinas to be underpaid, to work longer hours, to have no rest day, and to suffer a variety of physical and emotional abuses. But Indonesian domestic workers are also learning from other Indonesians, and from Filipina friends, acquaintances, and activists; they are communicating with each other, and are advocating for their rights in growing numbers.

There are also less measurable and quantifiable benefits to their protests and activism. Although the time spent in domestic shelters is often very stressful and painful, as women deal with the problems of unemployment, financial hardship, possible repatriation, the aftermath of abuse, and the pressure of labor tribunals and official hearings, there can also be a positive and empowering side to the experience. The domestic shelter provides not only with food, shelter, security and companionship. It also puts inexperienced workers, who might have suffered from overwork, physical and emotional abuse, underpayment, debt, and a multitude of other hardships, in contact with more experienced domestic workers who have survived similar hardships and who have come to define themselves more as advocates and activists than as victims. These experienced domestic workers often return to the shelter after their own ordeals are over, with a sense of knowledge and empowerment. With a new employment contact in hand, they may come to the shelter on their day off to work as volunteers, counselors, and leaders, offering encouragement and inspiration to the residents. In such settings, domestic workers gain a deeper understanding of the ways in which the personal and individual hardships they have encountered are part of a much wider pattern of global inequality and can be translated into a collective struggle among domestic workers and other migrant worker. Their hardships sometimes translate into deep political commitment, into a need to come back to Hong Kong with a new and better employment contract and to reciprocate, assist, educate, and advocate for others. Some such workers return to work in Hong Kong with a fresh commitment to participate in political activities. Such activities and bonds often become a source of strength and the basis for new political subjectivities.

Although the specific stated goals of the protests have not been accomplished, the demonstrations nonetheless have wider reverberations in and beyond the lives and experiences of individual domestic workers. Protests allow workers to voice demands loudly in public spaces, to ally themselves with other workers and liberal politicians, and to literally gain a public voice and a perspective on global labor migration. This assertive activist voice stands in sharp contrast to the workweek behavior of subservience and obedience that is expected or required in many employers’ homes. Such protests allow workers to discover new things about themselves and the political-economic circumstances that have propelled them to work abroad. By situating their personal experiences within a wider context of local and global inequality and power, migrant women come to be and to see themselves as much more than maids. They have, in their own words, become WISER. They can situate themselves within the global economy and they can point to ways in which the system needs to change. Domestic workers I knew in the mid-1990s fought for the right of overseas Filipinos to vote in national elections, they founded the Migrante political party in the Philippines. Several Hong Kong domestic worker activists in Hong Kong have gone on to become well known political activists at home. On balance, domestic worker activism has not accomplished all the goals that activists set for themselves, but in the process of fighting for their goals, they have claimed new political subjectivities for themselves, they have reframed the meaning of their work in relation to globalization, they have fueled a movement for global change that has spread to other regions of Asia and other migrant workers, and they have forced a rethinking of the notion of maids as simply domestic workers.

Nicole Constable is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Pittsburgh

-1- For further detail on the topics of this essay, see Nicole Constable, Maid to Order in Hong Kong: Stories of Migrant Workers, Cornell University Press, 2007.

-2- See Rhacel Salazar Parreñas Servants of Globalization, Stanford University Press, 2001.

-3- See Saskia Sassen, The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo, Princeton University Press, 2001.