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# HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
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housing units a day on the average and get $2,600 each. Why are people getting such shameful pay in the advanced, economically prosperous and busy society of Hong Kong? You may say I am discriminating against Filipina maids or worse, but seriously, these cleaning workers are getting less than foreign maids in Hong Kong. Maids get $3,800, but our cleaning workers get $2,600.
The policy of privatization reflects the neo-rightist state of consciousness exemplified by Thatcherism of the British Conservative Party and Reaganism of the US Republicans. These parties consider narrow economic efficiency and disregard the political efficiency of stability, fairness and equality. In Mr. IP's motion, I can see the trend for further exploitation. In the past ten years, the Conservative Party was in power. Ever since the appointment of Sir Murray MacLehose as Governor of Hong Kong, the privatization policy has continued to be implemented. The Hospital Authority and privatization of tunnel toll collection are examples. Once there is privatization, we see lowering of wages as the economic efficiency. In other words, we just sacrifice the wages of the lower class. Why are we still looking to short-sighted economic efficiency? We faced that before. When the unemployment rate was high years ago, a lot of colleagues here (including members of the Democratic Alliance) as members of trade unions stood out to urge government for improvement. Why are we still looking at economic efficiency in a short-sighted way? We regard contracting out a good alternative because it cuts down our expenses. Let us not forget that exploitation of the workers leads to imbalance of social economics which in turn undermines social prosperity. We speak of economic prosperity often, but if we have a lot of people of the lower class getting shameful pay barely enough for them to live from hand to mouth, all I can see is inequality that challenges our social stability.
Therefore, when we speak of efficiency, we should consider political efficiency as expressed in social stability and social equality in addition to economic efficiency. There are people who ban social equality as communism and socialism, or an utopian state never to be realized. I just want to ask whether cutting down on divisiveness amounts to communist and socialist ideology. Many sociologists and economists in Hong Kong have observed a widening gap between the haves and have-nots here. Such a scene is created step by step by the Conservative Party rule and the extension of its privatization policy.
Many projects in our society are being privatized. One example is the privatization of school janitor work. The plan threatens the stability faced by some 10,000 school janitors in our 1,000 schools. Of course, contracting out means cheaper service and savings on the school budget. However, when people earning big money disregard social equality and exploit the lower class, the livelihood of the lower class goes from bad to worse. Who is to be held responsible?