This paper explores the economic initiative of two groups of grassroots women in a community organization, the Hong Kong Federation of Women's Centres, which has aimed to improve the status of women in Hong Kong, and more recently to develop their potential in economic activities in Hong Kong. The groups concerned are lower income homemakers who are invisible in the national accounting system, and who by necessity or choice, have decided to take part in paid labour outside the home. Their initiative makes positive use of the skills and knowledge that they have accumulated as homemakers in the home economy, to work as paid cleaning or domestic workers in the homes of their employers. What is so different then about these two groups of cleaning women in their 'Eco-cleaning Project'? Institutions and homes in Hong Kong have always used the labour of cleaning women who are hired by commercial companies or by individuals. Unlike them however, the paper details the efforts of these women to organize themselves as a collective, so that they are able to control the amount of work and the time of day that they can work, in order to be both paid workers and responsible carers and homemakers. This alternative work mode rests in part on the social relationships that they have built with one another in the community centre, and the relationship that they have built up with the centre as a group.
For a long time the prevailing ideology in Hong Kong has been the ideology of self-reliance, centering on the individual to be responsible for individual effort. Government rhetoric had encouraged such an ethos although in reality, it should more accurately refer to individual members in the family. In the absence of adequate social and welfare benefits, the family has been the main provider of care. Overwhelmingly women have been the main carers of their families, and their work history has been influenced by this role. For such women who are faced with inadequate, or unaffordable child care, this project is an exercise in economic
empowerment, which can only come about, not through individual effort, but through team support, collective bargaining and women friendly working hours. In order to achieve this outcome, people need to communicate effectively, articulate shared values and negotiate their differences. How does this social networking help us to understand the concept of 'social capital'?
This development among the women members correspond to the latest policy initiative by government to promote "social networking" and "to strengthen social cohesion, with a view to building up a caring and compassionate society." Such resuscitation of the sense of community, and a concern about the welfare of marginalized groups may have been a pragmatic response to the negative effects of a sluggish economy and rising unemployment, but it is a timely reminder that this aim has always been present among non-governmental organizations like the Hong Kong Federation of Women's Centres. Homemakers who are isolated from the world of paid work, newly arrived migrants from Mainland China, whose qualifications are not recognized, and middle-aged women whose work skills are no longer needed in the Hong Kong market, pose different problems to be solved. Their attempt in using the social and economic networks available to them will be examined critically in the paper.
In the opening paragraph of the invitation letter to attend a briefing/consultation session on the Community and Investment Fund which took place on February 26, 2002, organized by the Health and Welfare Bureau.
by
Evelyn G. H. Ng
Centre of Asian Studies, The University of Hong Kong
Chan Yu
Director, Hong Kong Federation of Women's Centres