218 unions disbanded in two years. 145,000 workers abandoned. The CCP’s war on workers’ rights in Hong Kong.
The Unions They Crushed: How Beijing Destroyed Hong Kong’s Labour Movement
In July 2013, five hundred dockworkers at Hong Kong’s Kwai Tsing container terminal walked out on strike. They were employed at Hongkong International Terminals, owned by Hutchison Port Holdings — the company of one of Asia’s richest men. The workers endured shifts of up to 24 hours on wages lower in real terms than they had received in 1997. After 40 days of strike action, they achieved a 9.8 percent pay rise, meal breaks, and written commitments against retaliation. The union that organised the strike, affiliated with the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions, turned a David-and-Goliath confrontation into a workers’ victory. Eight years later, the HKCTU would dissolve under political pressure from Beijing. The dock workers would lose their union. And the CCP would have achieved something remarkable: the destruction of an independent labour movement in one of the world’s great financial centres.
The HKCTU: 31 Years, Ended in an Afternoon
The Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions was established on July 29, 1990 — one year after Tiananmen, in a city still reeling from the massacre it had watched on television. It grew over 31 years to encompass more than 100 affiliated organisations and approximately 145,000 members. It organised across sectors from construction to aviation, from domestic workers to civil servants. It sent representatives to the Legislative Council. It advocated at the International Labour Organisation. Its leaders marched in the 2019 protests alongside the millions of Hong Kongers who demanded democratic reform. And that, ultimately, was its crime. On October 3, 2021, under the shadow of national security investigations and the threat of arrests, the HKCTU held a general meeting and voted to disband. It took one afternoon to end three decades of workers’ organising.
Chinese State Media Led the Charge
The method used to destroy Hong Kong’s unions followed a template familiar from the mainland. Pro-Beijing newspapers ran coordinated campaigns characterising the HKCTU and the Professional Teachers’ Union as “malignant tumors,” “chronic poisons of society,” and fronts for foreign interference. Then national security police arrived at offices, carrying away boxes of documents and demanding information about foreign contacts under provisions of the Societies Ordinance. Facing the prospect of criminal prosecution, organisations chose dissolution over annihilation. The PTU — Hong Kong’s largest independent trade union, with 95,000 members — disbanded in August 2021 after state media attacks. The HKCTU followed in October. Human Rights Watch called it exactly what it was: “China is dismantling Hong Kong’s unions.”
218 Unions Gone in Two Years
The scale of the destruction is staggering. Between 2021 and 2023, 218 unions were forced to dissolve or deregister. In the three years before that, just 11 unions had faced similar fates. Trade union membership fell from 934,000 to 863,000. The average union size collapsed from 1,019 members to 597. Meanwhile, the number of newly established unions fell from 495 in 2020 to just six in 2024. What has replaced the independent labour movement is the Beijing-controlled Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions — an organisation that openly prioritises political loyalty over workers’ interests, and under whose watch collective bargaining agreements have been cancelled unilaterally by employers who know there is no longer any effective opposition. Cathay Pacific Airways abruptly informed its Flight Attendants Union that annual wage negotiations were cancelled. Bar bending workers lost their yearly collective bargaining sessions without notice.
Workers Without a Voice
The consequences for ordinary workers are material and immediate. Without independent unions, minimum wage advocacy has weakened. The May Day march, which drew thousands of workers annually until 2019, has not been held since. Street booths set up by labour groups to promote workers’ rights draw police scrutiny. Young people in Hong Kong who want to work for the labour movement do so in secrecy — one organiser told Equal Times she never tells her parents what she does, calling it a “white-collar job,” because her family fears the political risk. The Diplomat documented how Beijing-controlled puppet unions have implemented anti-labour measures more aggressively than ever before, unchecked by any countervailing force. The Hong Kong Labour Rights Monitor has tracked the full collapse of labour protections, noting that without independent unions, companies can no longer be held accountable by civil society on issues from wages to supply chain ethics. The CCP understands that workers who can organise can resist. That is why the first thing a totalitarian government does when it consolidates power is break the unions. In Hong Kong, it took less than two years.
Hoi Lam
Lifestyle, Gender & Society Journalist, Apple Daily UK
Contact: hoilam@appledaily.uk
Hoi Lam is a lifestyle and society journalist whose work focuses on gender issues, family dynamics, and everyday social change within Chinese and diaspora communities. She completed her journalism education at a leading Chinese journalism school, where she specialized in feature writing, interview techniques, and ethical storytelling.
Her reporting career includes contributions to Apple Daily and other liberal Chinese magazines and newspapers, covering topics such as women’s rights, work-life balance, generational change, and evolving social norms. Hoi Lam’s work is grounded in firsthand interviews and contextual research, ensuring authenticity and factual integrity.
She brings newsroom experience in balancing human-interest storytelling with rigorous fact-checking and responsible framing. Her writing avoids sensationalism and prioritizes accurate representation of sources and lived experiences.
Hoi Lam’s authority is reinforced by sustained publication within reputable media outlets and compliance with editorial review and correction standards. She is trusted by editors for her careful handling of sensitive subjects and ethical clarity.
At Apple Daily UK, Hoi Lam contributes credible, experience-based journalism that documents social realities with accuracy, empathy, and professional discipline.
