A Message to our comrades in the Indonesian Migrant Workers Union (IMWU)

Greetings to our comrades in the Indonesian Migrant Workers Union! Toojeng!

We, your comrades from the Seoul-Gyeonggi-Incheon Migrants Trade Union would like to express our solidarity and support in the fight against discrimination and oppression of workers in all forms.

Like IMWU, all the members and friends of MTU have been in constant struggle fighting against discriminatory policies, provisions and treatment of the law. In the past, the migrant workers in Korea working under the D3 visa were abused, oppressed and treated no better than slaves, animals or machines. Migrant workers have fallen ill, injured, verbally abused, were not given equal wages and at times were not given wages at all. They have also died from accidents because no safety standards were enforced. Death from illnesses was also common because they had no access to health care benefits. The provisions of the Korean law were not sufficient to protect and give equal treatment to migrant workers compared to Korean workers and this led to their abuse.

This discrimination and the intensity of their abuse led to public outcry not only from the migrant community but from Korean society as well. The public outcry and struggle by our former comrades and numerous supporters led to the revision of the law. Today we cannot claim that our plight has drastically changed. In fact, there is still oppression and discrimination against the migrant workers in Korea. But in comparison to the plight of the migrant workers in the past, the struggle made it possible for us to fight for our RIGHTS.

Today, we enjoy the same rights as the Korean workers when it comes to application of the Labor Law, Minimum Wage Law and access to medical and various insurances. We are also provided with free housing, food allowance and set working hours (40 or 44 hour work-week). Abuses are still common, but in the end, the law assures us of our RIGHTS and therefore makes us empowered to fight for it.

The discriminatory exclusion of the foreign and domestic helpers from the protection of the Statutory Minimum Wage Law in Hong Kong is a clear validation that despite of its progress, the Hong Kong government enshrines its bigotry in laws and policies, and shows the world a reflection of its inhumanity and atrociousness towards domestic helpers, both foreign and local.


Therefore, we, the Migrants Trade Union, demand from the Hong Kong government respect for the dignity of the working class and the inclusion of all domestic workers both foreign and local in the Statutory Minimum Wage Law Instead of the Minimum Allowable Wage Law. We demand the abolition of the Foreign Domestic Helpers Policy. We also demand the protection of foreign domestic helpers from violence, sexual harassment, and other forms of abuse and the institution of tougher laws and strict enforcement of these laws.

We would like to appeal to our comrades in Hong Kong to unite against this injustice not only in IMWU but from other unions like FADWU, FDWU, HK Domestic Workers General Union, ODWU, TMWU, UNDW, among other groups and communities, human rights groups, centre’s, NGO's and all foreign workers.

All of us, not only the governments, need to realize our importance in society. If there were no workers there would be no civilization. We demand respect. We demand equal treatment. We demand for our dignity. And we demand for the right to the pursuit of happiness.

From your comrades in MTU, we join IMWU in this struggle. Toojeng!