Unusual Partnership: Postwar Labor Activism and the Colonial State in British Hong Kong, 1946-1948

• In Event: Decolonization on the Horizon: Social and Economic Renewal in Postwar China and British Hong Kong

Abstract

Amicable and serious cooperation between a colonial state and the workers under its colonial rule was rare, if happened at all. Yet in the first three years after the end of WWII and Japanese occupation, British Hong Kong's Labour Department reached out to Chinese workers, encouraged them to form new labor unions, gave them legal advice, attended their celebration for major political events or holidays and, significantly, carefully weighed in workers' interest when mediating the conflict between organized workers and their employers.

This paper takes a close look at these years of extraordinary cooperation between the Labour Department and labor activists in Hong Kong. It explores this unusual but forgotten episode in Hong Kong's past through an analysis of the formation and function of the postwar Labour Department and on some of the locally well-known collective actions. As a result of resurgence of labor activism, significant transformation in postwar labor leadership and organization took place. The British need to revive its colonial rule Hong Kong, however, diverged from Chinese workers' renewed sense of dignity as inspired by decolonization and strengthened by their participation in wartime resistance. Tension between the two, therefore, was momentarily suppressed but not resolved.

Author

• Yan Lu, University of New Hampshire