A 40-day strike of more than 500 dockworkers at the Port of Hong Kong ended yesterday with a settlement that included a 9.8 percent wage increase, non-retaliation against strikers, and a written agreement, all of which had been fiercely resisted by the four contractors targeted in the strike.
Strikers accepted the offer by a 90 percent vote.
The four contractors also agreed to work through the port manager Hong Kong International Terminal (HIT) to provide meal and toilet breaks, which had been lacking even for workers on 12- or 24-hour shifts. Crane operators laid off during the strike will be rehired.
Workers see HIT—owned by Li Ka-shing, one of the world’s wealthiest capitalists—as the real power at play, as the interview below demonstrates.
Though members of the Union of Hong Kong Dock Workers (UHKDW) had been holding to their demand for a double-digit wage increase, they had growing concerns about contractors’ use of scabs and the relative ease with which shippers could reroute from Hong Kong to the nearby mainland China port of Shenzhen. After the breakthrough accomplishment of forcing the contractors to negotiate, and clearly winning the battle of public opinion, strikers were ready to return to work.
The strike was notable in that dockworkers across multiple sub-contractors first self-organized, from the bottom up, before seeking affiliation for their union with the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions (HKCTU).
The political environment in Hong Kong allows inter-union competition between HKCTU and the pro-Beijing Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions (HKFTU). Workers have the chance to see the differences between the HKFTU’s pro-corporate brand of unionism and the HKCTU’s anti-corporate stand—but are also caught between the antagonistic interests. During the strike, HKFTU carried to workers the employers’ low-ball wage-increase offer (5 percent). These negotiations exposed HKFTU’s relative illegitimacy.
The support of students, particularly through the group Left 21, was critical to engaging Hong Kong society as a whole. More than HK$8.5 million (US$1,105,000) was raised for a strike support fund which stood at only HK$30,000 (US$3,900) at the outset. Financial contributions and solidarity resolutions came from the West Coast longshore union in the U.S. (ILWU), the International Federation of Transport Workers, and transport workers unions in Japan, Australia, and the Netherlands.
Solidarity actions such as informational pickets, slow-downs, or rallies didn’t materialize, however—although in the U.S. and Canada, the Steelworkers were considering action at facilities owned by Husky Energy, a subsidiary of Li Ka-shing’s vast empire.
Interview with Hong Kong Dockworkers Leader
Stephen Philion, associate professor of sociology at St. Cloud State University in Minnesota, conducted this interview with the dockworkers union Secretary Wong Yu Loy last week in Hong Kong. Philion also translated.
The battle of the Hong Kong dockers, as union Secretary Wong Yu Loy reveals, was important not only because of the rarity of strikes in Hong Kong, or because it was a pitched battle with Hong Kong’s wealthiest corporate magnate, but also because of the way corporate globalization set up the terms of the battle and the importance unions around the globe attached to it.
As Wong suggests in the interview, the strike was followed closely and supported by labor activists and sympathizers in mainland China. The strike thus has potentially powerful implications for a global labor movement much in need of a sign that resistance to global capital remains not only relevant but possible.
Click here for more information and updates on the strike.
Q: To start with, what are the key issues that that have brought about the Hong Kong International Terminal (HIT) dockworkers’ strike?
Wong Yu Loy: Wages and workplace conditions. From 1995 to 2011 wages for stevedores had been constantly cut to the point where the wages were less than in 1995. In 2011 the union finally succeeded in securing a HK$200/day (US$26) wage increase, which still meant daily wages were HK$150 less per 24-hour shift than in 1995. As for crane drivers, they are paid much less if they are hired by subcontractors than by HIT directly.
This current conflict started brewing around March of last year. We attempted collective bargaining, sending a letter to all the terminals demanding a salary adjustment for workers across the industry, but this was met with rejection. We were basically ignored by the dock owner (Hong Kong International Terminals), a unit of multibillionaire and Asia’s wealthiest person Li Ka-shing’ s Hutchison Port Holdings Trust.
Subcontractors used various measures to repress the union, most notably insisting on direct negotiations with individual groups of workers. But from the outset dockworkers had insisted that negotiations be conducted with union representatives. These negotiations met with no success. Now, for the 10 years prior to 2011 there had been no wage adjustments, and it’s in the last year that the conflict reached a boiling point. Workers had waited a long time for changes and were frustrated with attempts by subcontractors’ strategy of negotiating with groups of 100, 200 workers. How do you conduct such negotiations?
