Prologue Journal

Social workers were once among the most active in Hong Kong’s civil society. Now, few are speaking up

• prologu5
• 07/21/202407/21/2024

Hong Kong Free Press

Standing outside Hong Kong’s government headquarters on a May morning, social work veteran Eddie Tse cut a lonely figure. 

Joined by just one other supporter, a retired social worker who declined to give his full name, Tse was there to protest government plans to overhaul the body responsible for registering social workers. He called the move “political interference,” warning it would undermine the sector’s autonomy.

The authorities had proposed giving government-appointed members a majority on the Social Workers Registration Board and barring those convicted of offences endangering national security from being social workers. Labour minister Chris Sun said the changes were needed to “better protect national security.”

The following month, Tse held a press conference to reveal the results of a survey on how social workers felt about the proposals. He and two other veterans of the field had canvassed fellow social workers and found the the overhaul to be overwhelmingly unpopular, with most of the 3,000-odd surveyed saying it would undermine the profession’s autonomy.

Asked after the press conference if he had more actions planned, Tse said no.

“That’s it, that’s all I can do,” he told HKFP in Cantonese, adding that it had not been easy to find others to join him.

Hong Kong was once accustomed to protests and assemblies. But in the wake of a security law that was imposed by Beijing in 2020, Tse’s efforts were rare – and futile. 

Less than a week after Tse’s press conference, the opposition-free legislature unanimously passed the amendments as lawmaker after lawmaker gave their enthusiastic support for the bill. Tik Chi-yuen, the legislator representing the social welfare sector and who has labelled himself as non-establishment, praised the welfare chief Sun and said he had “worked hard” to balance different views.

Before the amendment, most of the board’s members were elected by social workers. In recent years, all of those members came from the city’s pro-democracy camp.

With the overhaul, the percentage of government-appointed members increased from 40 per cent to more than 60 per cent, a change that reduces the influence of members elected by their peers.

Speaking to HKFP a few days ahead of the vote in the Legislative Council, Tse expressed resignation. “This is a plot that has already been written,” he said. “But we cannot let the government say what they want. If we say nothing, then that means we are giving tacit approval.”

Hong Kong has around 27,000 people licensed by the Social Workers Registration Board, although there is no figure on how many are practicing social workers. Social workers are often employed by government departments and NGOs to support vulnerable groups such as underprivileged children, the elderly, and new immigrants.

Their wide-ranging work includes identifying people in need, connecting them with welfare resources and helping them apply for government subsidies, and policy advocacy.

Voicing demands

Beyond Tse’s efforts to speak out against the amendments, there was little open discussion within the social work sphere. Such silence was a sign of Hong Kong’s times and in stark contrast to the past, veterans of the sector told HKFP.

The city’s social workers have a long history of publicly expressing their demands, whether for their sector or for the communities they support.

But after Beijing imposed the national security law in June 2020 following months of pro-democracy protests and unrest, dozens of the civil society organisations that used to hold demonstrations have disbanded. While some were political groups, many were unions representing professions from teachers to lawyers to speech therapists, and which had a pro-democracy stance.

The law criminalised secession, subversion, foreign collusion and terrorism, with authorities saying it restored stability in the city. However, it has been criticised by international rights organisations and foreign governments, with a US-government agency noting its “devastating effect” on civil society.

Of the organisations that remain, few are active, and those that have tried to stage demonstrations have been unsuccessful. Last March, the Hong Kong Women Workers’ Association applied to organise a march to promote gender equality, and received verbal approval. But the group cancelled the march the night before without explanation while police said they learnt that “violent groups” would attend the event.

Leung Chi-yuen, a poverty and social movements researcher, told HKFP that industrial action such as strikes or marches used to draw thousands of social workers to the streets.

One of the sector’s longest-standing controversies was an overhaul that changed the way NGOs received government funding. Introduced in 2001, the lump-sum grant system continued to be contentious more than a decade on, as social workers said it effectively meant they were paid less.

Over the years, social workers organised rallies and marches to oppose the system. The biggest demonstration was in 2007, when around 3,000 social workers went on a 24-hour strike. Protesters said the sector was plagued by problems like frozen salaries, low morale and burnout, and demanded the government review the grant system.

“Back then, the government did make some concessions in response to demands,” Leung, also a former social worker, said in Cantonese.

Social workers also lobbied for low-income families, victims of government redevelopment, and other communities they served.

“We played the role of a facilitator,” Leung said. “We taught them how to organise and what rights they had. For example, we taught them how to write letters to lawmakers and attend public hearings at the Legislative Council.”

But now, the political environment has changed, he said. Both social workers and the communities they advocate for think there may be risk if they criticise government policies, Leung added.

“There is less room for negotiation with the government,” he told HKFP, adding that current-term lawmakers were less accountable than their predecessors. A 2021 electoral overhaul saw the number of democratically-elected legislators cut, with most of the seats being decided by small-circle elections.

‘More liberal mindset’

As large-scale democracy movements swept across the city in the past decade, social workers’ advocacy took on a more political element. This came naturally to those in their profession, social work veterans told HKFP.

During the Umbrella Movement in 2014 and the protests and unrest in 2019, the social work sector was among the most outspoken.

Mok Hing-luen, a retired senior lecturer in social work at City University of Hong Kong, said social workers tended to have a “more liberal mindset” as they aimed to improve livelihoods and address perceived injustices.

Social work and politics were intertwined, he said, adding that some social workers would enter politics with the hope of making a difference.

“We believed that to promote social change, we cannot just raise our voices outside,” he said in Cantonese. We need to have people who are inside [the system] who are lawmakers, or who are agents or allies.” 

But their activism has not been without censure. State-backed media outlets have accused the Hong Kong Social Workers’ General Union, which rallied support for the pro-democracy movement, of being “an anti-government group by nature.”

During the 2019 protests, members of the union also set up a group called the Battlefield Social Workers, putting themselves on the frontlines of demonstrations. They said they aimed to play the role of mediator between police and protesters.

In a 2021 article, Wen Wei Po listed the union’s “evil acts,” accusing the group of condoning violence and “inciting” social workers to strike during the 2019 protests.

The union has maintained a low profile in recent years. It put out a statement in May, after the government announced the proposed revisions, saying the amendments did not give the sector “room to discuss” and showed the authorities’ distrust of social workers. It did not make any statements after the amendment passed.

Social workers who were more vocal during social movements have also been singled out in pro-Beijing media. Jackie Chen, a social worker who mediated between police and protesters during the unrest in 2019, was accused of interfering in law enforcement actions “in the name of so-called protecting lives and defending human rights.”

Chen was arrested and charged with rioting in relation to a protest in August 2019. She was found not guilty, but is currently awaiting a second trial after the government appealed her acquittal.

Ken Tsang, a social worker who poured foul-smelling liquid on officers during the Umbrella Movement in 2014 and was later beaten by officers in a dark alley, has also been targeted. At the time, he was an elected member of the Social Workers Registration Board.

Following his conviction for assaulting police, Tsang was allowed to remain a social worker and was re-elected to the board, sparking criticism from pro-Beijing media outlets.

‘Soft resistance’

For social workers in Hong Kong today, public advocacy has largely become a thing of the past.

Mok, who helped Tse survey social workers’ views on the overhaul of the Social Workers Registration Board, said he believed many were afraid to openly express their opinions because they feared their jobs would be affected.

“I am retired, so I don’t have this concern,” he said. “But for others, there is much more at stake.”

A week after Tse, Mok and social work lecturer Timothy Chen announced the survey results, they were accused of “soft resistance” by pro-Beijing media outlet East Week.

Beijing and Hong Kong officials have repeatedly said it was necessary to regulate “soft resistance” to protect national security, but have not defined the term. Pro-establishment commentator Lau Siu-kai told HK01 that “soft resistance” referred to “non-violent acts of resistance” that were largely ideological.

The survey writers said they had made sure to word their questions “very carefully” by avoiding terms that were “too emotional.”

Labour chief Sun also suggested the survey was not legitimate, citing its anonymous nature. In response, Tse told HKFP he believed that fewer respondents would have participated if they had been asked to reveal their identities.

“People would be worried about how the information would be used, and if there would be consequences to what they say,” Tse said.

Tse and Mok said they never held any hope that the survey would make a difference. They said while individuals could still express their views, it was hard for the sector to mobilise and take collective action like it used to before the security law. Without strength in numbers, their impact would be limited.

“We knew we would not be able to change anything,” Mok said. “But it is important to us that we leave a record that there were different voices, that not everybody supported the amendment.”

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