BY
EVA CHENG
An international campaign against the Hong Kong government's attempt to introduce an anti-union and anti-civil rights law in the guise of combating sedition and subversion have received strong support from trade unions around the world.
The proposed law is based on the article 23 of Hong Kong's quasi-constitution, the Basic Law, against which 60,000 people protested in mid-December. The legislation basically extends the totalitarian controls on labour struggles and political activity in operation in mainland China to the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR).
Members from more than 70 trade unions around the world have emailed their concerns with the proposed legislation to Hong Kong SAR chief executive Tung Chee Hwa since the campaign was launched in early January by the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions (HKCTU), China Labour Bulletin (CLB) and the London-based trade union website, LabourStart.
In their submissions, the HKCTU and the CLB expressed concerns that the proposed law would undermine workers' right to take collective industrial action, with the CLB adding that it had hard evidence in mainland China where workers and labour activists are imprisoned on subversion charges simply for exercising the core workers' rights of free association and collective bargaining.
Four workers' leaders who organised massive protests in Liaoning province, northern China, last March to defend workers' entitlements have been detained for nine months without a trial. Two of them, Yao Fuxin and Xiao Yunliang, were even recently charged with subversion. This is a gauge on how far the SAR government might stretch the definition of subversion under its anti-subversion law.
The Australian unions which have joined the protests include Australian Manufacturing Workers' Union; the Community and Public Sector Union; the Australian Writers Guild; Australian Services Union; Finance Sector Union; Liquor, Hospitality and Miscellaneous Workers Union; NSW Labor Council; National Tertiary Industry Education Union; NSW Public Service Association; and the Service and Food Workers Union.
To join the international online protest campaign visit <http://www.labourstart.org/actnow/20021227.shtml>.
From Green Left Weekly, January 29, 2003.
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