Race is main determiner of pay scales
The exclusion of domestic helpers from the minimum wage law, argued on the counter-intuitive grounds that they work too many hours, is yet another example of expediency undermining the purpose of the legislation.
As with the exceptions under the race discrimination law, the legislation makes legal the very injustices it was ostensibly intended to end.
Many of those arguing against rights for domestic helpers appear to view the issue not as an employer-employee relationship but rather in terms of indentured labour. They are willing to visit on others the discrimination, such as unequal immigration rights, that their own race has suffered in Hong Kong and abroad. Too many employers, including large multinationals with comprehensive equal-opportunity policies, adopt double standards in Hong Kong. Even sporting bodies that promote the spirit of equality as central to the ethos of their sport, accept sponsorship from firms whose pay structures are effectively an economic apartheid, resulting in employees doing the same job having different living standards.
Declaring himself pragmatic, our chief executive leads a government that appears merely unprincipled, the only consistency being the protection of certain special interests.
The race discrimination and minimum wage laws provide a legal basis for the de facto situation that race is the primary determinant of pay differentials in Hong Kong.
This is a return to Hong Kong's past and is a step on a path that has led to greater wrongs in other times and places.
