During a recent eight -hour work in a McDonald’s in Hong Kong, Luke Ching, 52, wiped tables, platforms identified with half -eaten fries, cups of soda and milk tea and swollen garbage bags The dumpster.
For him, the main objective of the part -time work was not to join the two ends. It was research for its main prosecution: using art to plead for better treatment of people in subordinate jobs in a city with one of the widest gaps in the world’s income.
This project suddenly ended last month when he was dismissed after publicly calling Hong Kong to McDonald’s to restore pauses of paused for employees in his local outlets. Without being discouraged, Mr. Ching goes ahead – even if the scope of a broader political demonstration has shrunk in the city.
“Many people have admitted that they are not allowed to speak critically about their workplace. But employees do not only exist to generate profits, “said Mr. Ching in an interview. “We have the right to express ourselves in public.”
Over the past two decades, its campaigns have crossed the worlds of art and activism, winning a large audience of supporters as well as some online detractors, who call it attention to attention and gadget .
The workplace was both muse and canvas because it agitated for everything, stools for the museum guards to more consideration for people who clean the metro.
The minimum wage of Hong Kong – about $ 5 per hour – Barely covers basic subsistence costs. There are no collective negotiation laws, and employers are not legally obliged to recognize the unionsSo relatively little do it.
The unions, however, had long been politically active, regularly joining demonstrations to put pressure on the local government. Such demonstrations have become more common because the people of Hong Kong have resisted what they considered efforts to erode the “high degree of autonomyThe Chinese leaders had promised after Great Britain returned its former colony in 1997.
But a year of antigenmental demonstrations, sometimes violent, led to a repression of Beijing in 2020 and to the taxation of a law on national security which cooled dissent and led many activist unions to dissolve.
Some labor organizers in Hong Kong have been Condemned for violation of the law During their pro-democracy activism and sentenced to prison. Lee Cheuk Yan, a former legislator and work champion, has been imprisoned since 2021 awaiting trials, and the government has offered a bonus for the arrest of another activist of this type, Christopher Mung, who now lives in the Kingdom- United.
Steve Tsang, director of Soas China Institute in London, said that, in itself, labor activism is probably considered by the government of Hong Kong as a potential threat to national security, in particular if it targets large companies rather that government organizations.
“The difficulty is that in Hong Kong, what you do and how it will be treated is not always as clear“” He said. “Therefore, people become much more cautious about what they can and cannot say.”
The pressure continues to go up: the city offered Wednesday amendments This will allow the government to reject new unions for national security reasons.
Mr. Ching said that his activism has always focused on subsistence issues, and he doesn’t think there is something wrong or risk in what he does.
Things have sometimes tense themselves during the cocovated pandemic, he said, when the authorities repressed everything that could attract a crowd. The police searched him and questioned him, he said, when he was held in a metro station carrying a garbage bag on the uniform of his cleaner, with the lowest salary. Highest risk. The least support ”writes in band.
The company that runs the metro, MTR, then increased its hourly wage for contract cleaners.
Mr. Ching holds a master’s degree in fine arts from the Chinese University of Hong Kong and participated in exhibitions and residences around the world, including last year new Yorkwhere he collected cans and other recyclable articles in the context of an effort to make “the artist as a citizen”. Part of his work – video, photos and sculptures – is housed in museum collections, especially M + in Hong Kong and the Open gallery in Liverpool, England. His project “Undercover Worker” was preselected for the visible priceA prize for socially committed works of art in 2019.
For about a decade, he taught part -time art to his Alma Mater and at Polytechnic University of Hong Kong, including a popular “creative citizen»Course, where his students trained to become security guards and reported their experiences. (His inspiration for community activism, he said, dates back to 2007, when people went on to try to save a historic demolition ferry.)
He put aside teaching last August and collected $ 25,700 in donations funded by the crowd so that he could spend more time making art, working briefly in fast food chains, a Chinese butcher’s shop and as a Disneyland Hong Kong cleaner. Although he uses his real name, he said that his managers were generally not aware of his activism and were more anxious to provide vacancies.
While working at McDonald’s, Mr. Ching, who is married to a teenage girl, published newspaper entries Instagram And Facebook. To illustrate repetitive work during a typical change,, He followed his number of steps and made images of himself by collecting endless rows of half-supported cups.
Mr. Ching said that he had been attracted by the study of McDonald’s because customers from all walks of life used it as common space, which brings him a Hong Kong Flair. In its old branch in the Tai Po middle class district, the regulars of the elderly brought their own cups, newspapers and isolated novels while they settle in their usual seats, filling with hot free water from time to time.
Mr. Ching said that he also admired how, like him, the CEO of McDonald’s Hong Kong, Randy Lai, spent several months working as a low level employee. He brought this experience in an open letter to her that was Posted in the Broadsheet of Hong Kong Ming Pao in January.
“You should know that without meal salary, countless colleagues return to work after a hasty meal or give up their rest time,” he said.
He was dismissed in a few weeks. Company representatives, belonging to a Chinese Investment Capital Companydid not respond to requests from the New York Times for comment. McDonald spokesperson said local media that Mr. Ching had disclosed internal operational and commercial information and that he had been advised to do so. Mr. Ching denied these allegations, saying that he had simply shared his observations in his workplace.
Some observers say that as Mr. Ching’s ambitions have widened, his work has become less concentrated. Wong Wai Yin, an artist in Hong Kong who wrote his doctorate. The thesis on Mr. Ching, sometimes said that it was difficult to understand its objectives at McDonald’s – until it was dismissed.
“There were a lot of ketchup and selfies packages,” said Wong.
Wan Pak Kin, an organizer of the General Union of Catering and Hotel employees, said that Mr. Ching’s tactics have extended the hardest approach to traditional unions. “He knows how to find a happy medium between praise and criticism,” said Wan. “He examines the relationships and the link between his colleagues. He is part of the community. »»
This month, Mr. Ching, Mr. Wan and three other organizers representing working and environmental groups said they would form a coalition called the Alliance for my McDonald’s. Bearing McDonald’s festive hats at a press conference, the organizers said they hoped to push McDonald’s to pay attention to the suggestions of employees and the wider audience.
Mr. Ching said he was planning to spend more time on the front line to campaign for small and significant changes and strengthen relationships between workers. “I want the revolution to be in our daily work,” he said.
