Cheap Maids: Bane or Boon?

[Asterix]

We all pay a price for this slavish system
"Survey reveals abuse of foreign maids."

Wow, that's news! I am sure working as an ethnic-minority servant in Hong Kong is no bed of roses. However, it probably beats working in many Middle Eastern and Asian countries.

The survey of more than 3,000 women by a migrant workers' NGO found 58 per cent of maids have experienced verbal abuse, 18 per cent physical abuse and 6 per cent sexual abuse. Welfare activists claim the real figures are much higher.

It's ultimately irrelevant whether Hong Kong bosses are nice or exploitative and whether the maids are exploited victims.

The whole system is regressive, and has a corrosive effect on local parenting, family and society. It ensures the government and companies don't need to devise more enlightened policies on daycare, kindergartens and childhood services or promote maternity and paternity leave.

There is something fundamentally wrong about keeping more than 300,000 foreign-born women as a permanent underclass in self-styled modern and progressive Hong Kong. If nothing else, it teaches our children there are different classes of people.

You really wish Indonesia and the Philippines would get their acts together so their economies would provide more rewarding jobs for their women.

The availability of cheap foreign maids has freed a generation of local women to pursue careers and open for them senior positions in the corporate world and the government.

But that really amounts to liberating local women by exploiting the less fortunate foreign ones. It's a zero-sum game.

A cheap maid service enables the government to offload the responsibility of providing child care and so it has hitherto provided minimal or zero subsidies to most families, unless you are on welfare and belong to the poorest.

It enables firms to make women work long hours, without the need to pursue more enlightened policies like flexible work hours and longer maternity and paternity leave.

We may think we get a good deal exploiting other people's cheap labour. But in the end, everyone pays for such a regressive and slavish system.

http://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1294299/we-all-pay-price-slavish-system

改朝换代 告别腐败

 

[Scrooball (clone)]

This is all about supply and demand. Also, if no cheap maid, who want to have kids?

 

[laksaboy]

This is all about supply and demand. Also, if no cheap maid, who want to have kids?

Blame the Sinkie women for being utterly worthless in the kitchen, and useless when it comes to cleaning and washing.

 

[Asterix]

Pricing domestic helpers out of reach good for Hong Kong (and Sinkieland?) in the long run

If a miserly HK$90 rise will worsen Hong Kong's shortage of domestic helpers, then I say raise it by a couple of hundred, or even thousands. Some people are worried. I say it's a good thing.

Let the maids qualify for local minimum wages and enjoy the same permanent residency conditions. Once it costs as much to hire a foreign maid as it is to hire a local one, we can stop importing such a "cheap" source of foreign labour. In fact, they cost our society far more than it's often realised.

Instead of more than 300,000 maids, we will be much better off with 30,000 well-paid and motivated maids - like those sought-after and highly paid butlers. But most of us wouldn't be able to afford them. That's the whole point. Do your own household chores. Take care of your own children. Spend more quality time at home instead of slaving away in the office. So I am not advocating all this for the maids' benefit. It's just good for Hong Kong and our society to have far fewer maids. What do most maids do all day? Most try to do the minimum or less to get by because they get the same pay regardless. Some also steal now and then to get, in their own minds, their fair share. Why do you think so many pawn shops do such brisk business in Causeway Bay? I don't blame them. I would do the same, if not worse, if I were a foreign helper. There is no reward, only a dead-end job that sacrifices my youth and my chance at happiness in a life of my own.

Bosses know this, so many have to spend a disproportionate amount of time monitoring, disciplining and even abusing them to squeeze the most labour out of them to get their money's worth. I know there are many abusive employers. There are many unproductive and destructive maids too. It's a vicious cycle - blame it on the system.

To wean ourselves off our maid addiction, the government will have to introduce more realistic maternity and paternity leave and provide better-subsidised childcare and kindergartens. Companies will have to offer more progressive policies such as flexible work hours and even daycare to help workers who are mothers.

As it is, the exploitation of foreign maids lets the government off the hook and enables companies to exploit us wage slaves in turn.

http://www.scmp.com/comment/insight...tic-helpers-out-reach-good-hong-kong-long-run

 

[gingerlyn]

Pricing domestic helpers out of reach good for Hong Kong (and Sinkieland?) in the long run

Do your own household chores. Take care of your own children. Spend more quality time at home instead of slaving away in the office. So I am not advocating all this for the maids' benefit. It's just good for Hong Kong and our society to have far fewer maids. What do most maids do all day? Most try to do the minimum or less to get by because they get the same pay regardless. Some also steal now and then to get, in their own minds, their fair share. Why do you think so many pawn shops do such brisk business in Causeway Bay? I don't blame them. I would do the same, if not worse, if I were a foreign helper. There is no reward, only a dead-end job that sacrifices my youth and my chance at happiness in a life of my own.

http://www.scmp.com/comment/insight...tic-helpers-out-reach-good-hong-kong-long-run

I fully agree with you. However, Maid Levy is a good income for PAP regime and PAP regime cannot let go. So on one hand PAP regime want to minimize maids and on the other hands PAP regime is money minded and want more money.

I always ask myself, why PAP regime does not increase casino levy to SGD10,000 per entrance? why stop at SGD100? all because of $$$$.

Unlike Hong Kong, the government there does not impose Maid Levy. am i right?

 

[syed putra]

what are they talking about man!
Maids got kids at home too and need the money to maintain them.
its not only maid that got sexually molested and abused. Working mothers get these too.
Its a dog eat dog world out there man!