Hong Kong Labour Rights Monitor’s Executive Director Christopher Mung was invited to join the Global Solidarity Summer School organised by the Irish Congress Trade Union (ICTU) on 8 September 2022. Mung hosted an online workshop about the Hong Kong labour rights movement.
The summer school this year attracted 70 labour unionists from different sectors. The summer school discussed pressing issues faced by labour movements around the world, for example, global warming and workplace transformation post-COVID. The summer school also collectively formulated future work priorities and strategies. The ICTU followed their tradition and introduced an international perspective into their event and broadened the imagination of cross-regional solidarity. This year, the ICTU highlighted the Ukrainian war and the Kurdistan peace movement as their key themes, and the future of the Hong Kong independent labour movement was also one of the thematic workshops.
In the workshop, Mung explained the crackdown on union leaders and organisations since the implementation of the National Security Law; a large number of trade unions were thus forced to disband. He also shared his take on how the Hong Kong protest movement can learn from Eastern Europe’s democratisation.
The participants raised various follow-up questions, including whether the Chinese government would tighten its control over Hong Kong’s online space. They were also concerned about whether Hong Kong workers protesting for basic labour rights would face arrest and prosecution.
In the concluding part, Mung said that he did not know how far the road ahead would go, but he hoped that the international labour movement would continue to pay attention to and support Hong Kong so that the protesters in Hong Kong would not be alone.
