In November, around 100 trade unionists, Hongkongers, Chinese dissidents and allies gathered at the Chinese Embassy to protest in solidarity with the Hong Kong 47 and other political prisoners.
The 47 are on trial for conspiracy to commit subversion. The charges relate to their alleged participation in a 2020 primary vote to select pro-democracy candidates for elections to Hong Kong’s semi-democratic parliament, the LegCo. If elected, the candidates planned to advance the demands of the mass pro-democracy protest movement that had rocked the city over the preceding year.
Workers Against the CCP coordinated the November protest to coincide with the trial’s closing statements. The authorities have dragged the trial out for years, leaving many defendants to languish in jail. Even now (January 2024) there is no date set for verdicts.
Beyond the 47, the protest also stood up for the many other Hong Kong democracy and labour activists harassed and detained by the state.
Carol Ng
Carol Ng, one of the 47, was arrested after running for the Labour Party in the primary. Ng has a long history as a trade union militant. 20 years ago, she founded the British Airways Hong Kong Cabin Crews Union. As its leader she fought against discrimination, wage deductions, and job cuts. UK-based British Airways workers, who had become close comrades with Ng, brought the BASSA union banner to the protest and spoke of her kindness, determination and courage.
More recently, Ng became Chair of the HK Confederation of Trade Unions, and in 2019 led the CTU during a general strike in support of the democracy movement. The CTU has been active since 1990, fighting for democratic rights, backing strikes, and supporting solidarity networks for human and workers’ rights in mainland China. It coordinated independent unions, distinct from the state-backed, Communist-Party-aligned Federation of Trade Unions, which avoids industrial militancy and, alongside most of HK's big bourgeoisie, has opposed democratisation.
The CTU was boosted in 2019 and 2020, as sections of the democracy movement turned to trade unionism: “Resist Tyranny, Join a Union” was a regular chant, and a flurry of new independent unions were founded. But state repression smashed the movement into retreat and since 2021 the CTU and many of its affiliates have been forced to dissolve.
Winnie Yu
One of those new unions, combining workplace militancy and political action, was the Hospital Authority Employees Alliance (HAEA), founded in 2019 by Winnie Yu. Yu is now on trial as another of the HK47.
Yu, a nurse, volunteered as a protest medic during the democracy demonstrations and occupations of 2014 and 2019. She founded the HAEA and in February 2020 led it in a five-day strike over the government’s handling of border controls in COVID. Later that year, she ran successfully as the union’s candidate in the primary vote.
By the time it was forced to dissolve in 2022, the HAEA was the largest health union in HK, representing around a quarter of health workers.
Elizabeth Tang
We also highlighted the case of Elizabeth Tang. Tang is not one of the 47, but was arrested in March 2023 and charged, like the 47, under the totalitarian National Security Law.
Tang helped found the CTU and served as its chief executive for 16 years. In 2010, she helped found the Hong Kong Federation of Asian Domestic Worker Unions, organising a notoriously exploited workforce of mainly migrant women. This evolved into the International Domestic Workers Federation, of which Tang is General Secretary, coordinating unions of household and care workers across 68 countries.
Tang had left Hong Kong in 2021. She was arrested when visiting her imprisoned husband (former CTU General Secretary Lee Cheuk-yan, himself serving multiple sentences for “inciting, organising and participating” in unauthorised protests). She awaits trial for alleged “collusion with a foreign country or external elements”.
• Workers Against the CCP is a new coalition organising solidarity in the UK labour movement to support the struggles of workers and oppressed people in China and its occupied territories. Get involved: workersagainsttheccp.org