Hong Kong Aff
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cutting boardHong Kong PovertyIt’s so fucked upBloom 14 [(Dan, journalist) “Hong Kong's 'caged dogs': Poverty-stricken people forced to live like animals in one of the world's wealthiest and most densely populated cities” Feb 13, 2014] AT Crammed into wire mesh boxes the size of coffins, these are the penniless people forced to live like animals in one of the world's richest cities. Hong Kong's forgotten 'caged dogs' pay about HK$1,500 a year (£117) to live in a city whose small size and high population pushes the rent on even a tiny flat far out of the reach of its poorest residents. The poverty-stricken people keep their clothes and photos of loved ones next to filthy blankets in their cages, which measure 6ft long and between 2 1/2 ft and 3ft wide and are stacked on top of each other. Some of them cannot stretch their legs out straight and are forced to sleep curled up in a ball. British-born photographer Brian Cassey, who lives in Cairns, Australia, is the latest to document residents of shocking cage homes who are known locally as 'caged dogs'. He found one of the illegal iron and timber shanties perched on the rooftop of a 12-storey apartment block in the downtown district of Kowloon, on the peninsula opposite the main city centre on Hong Kong Island. 'The atmosphere inside is hot, dark, intense and unfriendly', he said. 'As I first arrived in the corridor outside, I could hear the landlord inside yelling at the residents; I beat a retreat and returned later.' With a population of more than 7 million, about the same as London, the wealthy former British colony has an area of just 426 square miles which puts prices at a premium. A small one-bedroom apartment costs about HK$16,000 (£1,240) a month. The caged homes began in the 1950s and 1960s when a baby boom and an influx of Chinese migrants saw Hong Kong's population soar by more than a million. But there were just a few thousand cages until the 1990s, when the estimated number soared to a peak of 100,000 in 1997. Last year the government estimated there are 177,000 people living in highly inadequate housing in Hong Kong, but because so many of the cage homes are run illegally it is impossible to say how many of that number were cages. According to the most recent official figure in 2007, 53,000 people were living in the mesh boxes. One cage-dweller, Wong Tat Ming, 57, said his home is too small for him to stretch out fully, forcing him to sleep curled up into a ball. Many of the residents feel making a cage their home is better than living on the street. One, Roger lee, 61, said: 'I have been here for three years now and before this I was in another cage home. 'I've been on the public-housing waiting list for many years, but I'm single so have no hope.' The government says there are more than 220,000 people on the waiting list for public housing, about half of whom are single individuals, and the average wait is almost three years. Some illegally tenanted buildings were evicted recently, but only five out of 100 of the tenants were reportedly offered public housing. Homelessness in Hong Kong was once rare, but many hundreds now live in doorways, under overpasses, and in tunnels. Sze Lai-Shan works for Hong Kong's Society for Community Organisation, which visits 1,000 cage-dwellers a year and campaigns for their living standards to be improved. She told MailOnline: 'If you run a cage home you need to apply for a licence but people are now setting them up without licences and running them illegally, so the government doesn't have an accurate figure on how many there are. 'We're finding more and more illegal cage homes and the cost of living in them is rising. The average rent is about 1,500 Hong Kong dollars (£117) a year. If the landlord is kind they might charge $1,000, and that's for 15 or 18 square feet. 'We're trying to put pressure on the government to increase the supply of public housing and push the government to monitor the cage homes and the rent people are paying a lot more.' CardSiu 14 [Phila Siu, “HK$3 rise in Hong Kong’s minimum wage ‘would cost HK$1.4 billion’,” South China Morning Post, 8/5/2014] AZ The city's employers will have to fork out an additional HK$1.4 billion a year if the hourly statutory minimum wage goes up from the current HK$30 to HK$33, the Minimum Wage Commission was told. "It's not a lot if you think about how many employers will be sharing the amount," a person with knowledge of the commission meeting at which the figures were presented said. The 12-member commission, headed by senior counsel Jat Sew-tong, is expected to submit a report on a new wage level to Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying before the end of October. Leung, in consultation with the Executive Council, is expected to make a decision on the wage by the end of the year. The business sector wants the wage level to stay the same, but would accept a 6.66 per cent rise to HK$32. Unionists are pressing for a rise of about one-third to as much as HK$39.70. The government told the commission members that the extra costs would be about HK$300 million and HK$790 million if the hourly minimum wage goes up to HK$31 and HK$32, respectively. The figures had not taken into account "ripple effects", meaning that staff already paid above the minimum wage level would seek more money. By contrast, the commission said earlier that the additional bill was HK$2 billion when the level went from HK$28 to HK$30 in 2011. But this figure took into account the ripple effects. A 2012 study on ripple effects, commissioned by the government, pointed out that the median hourly wage in the retail sector increased 10.2 per cent from HK$33.30 to HK$36.70 from September 2010 to a year later. The source said the commission received about 300 letters during the eight-week consultation that ended in May. Most unionists wanted HK$37 an hour, employers wanted the minimum wage frozen, and non-governmental organisations suggested a rate of HK$34. The source also said that commission members had not yet made clear what wage they preferred. "Actually the economic statistics presented by the government do not mean much. At the end of the day it is down to the tug of war between the representatives who have in mind a level they want," the source said. The Liberal Party's catering-sector lawmaker, Tommy Cheung Yu-yan. said the government's estimates failed to show the whole picture because ripple effects were not considered. Cheung, who had been criticised by unionists for suggesting a level of HK$20 before the law was introduced, now wants the level to stay at HK$30. He said the catering industry did not lay off staff because operation costs increased, as such expenses were transferred to customers. "The salaries of public estate tenants have already gone up sharply. The minimum wage is supposed to help the low-income families," he said. "It does not need to go up every year or every two years. Many low-income families are getting paid well above the minimum wage. The commission does not know economics. "How could the chairman Jat Sew-tong say earlier that the HK$30 level is working fine? Just look at the inflation." Employment to cuthttp://www.aon.com/apac/human-resources/thought-leadership/asia-connect/2011-sep/impact-of-smw-in-hk.jsp http://www.economist.com/blogs/analects/2014/11/hong-kongs-domestic-helpers http://www.getinews.com/news-9308124-The-new-minimum-wage-in-Hong-Kong-or-Hong-Kong-dollars-for-the-enterprise-more-than-eleven-billion-additional-expenditure.html neg materialsI bet fink cuts this for the cap K and pranav calls this card on fireMcGrath 2/7 [Ben McGrath “Hong Kong protest falls short of expectations”] AT Thousands of people in Hong Kong took part in a rally on Sunday, February 1, the first major demonstration since the ending last December of weeks of protests to demand more open elections. This event failed to bring out the same large numbers that took to the streets last year, a clear sign of the dead-end politics of the leaders of the so-called democracy movement. Sunday’s demonstrations were coordinated by the Civil Human Rights Front, a collection of Hong Kong organizations with ties to the pan-democrat grouping of legislators. Involved were many of the figures who led and subsequently shut down last year’s 11-week protest. They included Benny Tai, a university professor and co-founder of the group Occupy Central, and Martin Lee from the Democrat Party. Speaking about Sunday’s protest, Daisy Chan, a representative of the Civil Human Rights Front, said, “This only shows that Hong Kongers are no longer satisfied with conventional ways of protest.” She continued, “We will review whether the people want new ways to pressure the government ... I am confident Hong Kongers will show up again when the right moment comes.” Joshua Wong, from the student group Scholarism, who was prominent in last year’s protests, declared, “We want to sustain the momentum after the Occupy protests.” In reality, the protest leaders are seeking to maintain their credibility as they seek to suffocate and prevent a broader struggle from breaking out. Organizers estimated the turnout at 13,000, far below the projected 50,000. The demonstration began at Victoria Park and led through Causeway Bay, Hong Kong’s upscale shopping district and financial center. At the height of the demonstrations last year, tens of thousands joined the protests to demand direct and open elections for Hong Kong’s chief executive as well as in response to police repression. Currently, Hong Kong’s chief executive, the head of the city’s government, is selected by a pro-Beijing committee. When Great Britain returned its former colony to China in 1997, Beijing promised that it would maintain a “one country, two systems” that gives significant autonomy to the city. On August 31, Beijing announced that it would allow direct elections for chief executive in 2017, but only under the condition that candidates be vetted and approved by a nomination committee comprised of officials close to the central government. Last year’s protest movement demanded the opening up of nominations. Beijing warned on Wednesday that it would not change its position. Zhang Xiaoming, head of the government’s liaison office in Hong Kong, told top officials, including current Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying, “We could not allow any attempt to reject the central authority’s jurisdiction over Hong Kong under the pretext of a high degree of autonomy, to advocate Hong Kong independence, or even to overtly confront with the central government through illegal ways.” The protest leaders represent layers of the Hong Kong elite that are concerned that Beijing’s domination of the city’s administration will affect its viability as a financial centre and are seeking greater autonomy from the mainland. The falling support for the protests is a result of the failure to address the poor and the serious social conditions many face and the lack of an appeal to the working class in either the city or the Chinese mainland. Indeed, the Hong Kong ruling elite as a whole fears that any move that could lead to an explosion of social discontent. Hong Kong is dominated by a handful of billionaires, some like media tycoon Jimmy Lai with close ties to the pan-democrats, making it one of the most unequal societies in the world. Some 20 percent of people live below the official poverty line with little welfare support. The minimum hourly wage of only $HK30 ($US3.90) has not kept up with inflation, while access to employment has dwindled. Last year’s protests erupted in late September after police cracked down on a strike and demonstrations by students. Amid public outrage over the use of tear gas, pepper spray and batons, the protests swelled to 50,000 people and protesters occupied sites at Admiralty, the government center, Causeway Bay, and Mong Kok in Kowloon for weeks. Almost from the beginning, the pan-democrats and their supporters in Occupy Central attempted to shut down the protests. While student leaders adopted more militant tactics, their aims were just as limited. They sought to pressure the Hong Kong government and Beijing into making concessions. In early December, Benny Tai along with his fellow co-founders of the Occupy Central group turned themselves in to police, urging the students in the streets to give up. After 11 weeks, the police shut down the protest sites. Hundreds were arrested, including members of the Democrat Party like Martin Lee, Albert Ho, and others from the pan-democrat grouping. As they had been pressing demonstrators to end their struggle, their arrests were nothing more than a cynical stunt to retain some political legitimacy. The lesson from last year’s protests was that the democratic aspirations of workers and youth cannot be met within the framework of bourgeois elections. Even if the demand for full and open elections had been achieved, the outcome would be an election dominated by the political representatives of Hong Kong’s wealthy elites which would continue the pro-market policies being pursued by the current city administration. A genuine fight for democratic rights is bound up with a political struggle against capitalism and all the factions of the ruling elite, and a turn to the working class in Hong Kong, China and internationally on the basis of a socialist program. Directory: file -> view view -> Western Europe after wwii view -> Author study: paul fleischman view -> Qpa1 7ela study Guide view -> Arctic Oil/Gas Neg view -> November 1970 Approximately 150,000-500,000 deaths Bhola Cyclone Bangladesh view -> Grade Level: 6 Unit of Study: Caribbean glce view -> Citation: Duffield, Katy view -> Table of Contents Lesson # view -> Chinese Wind Energy Disad Download 1.87 Mb. Share with your friends:
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