李啟明

English

Lee Kai-ming was a Hong Kong trade union leader and former legislator, born in Guangzhou on 11 October 1937. Educated to secondary school level, he devoted himself to the labour movement. In 1984 he helped found the Federation of Hong Kong and Kowloon Labour Unions and became its secretary-general, helping to build it into one of Hong Kong's leading union federations; he chaired the federation from 1995 to 1999. He also served on the Basic Law Consultative Committee and as a Hong Kong affairs adviser, taking part in the institutional preparations around Hong Kong's return to Chinese sovereignty. In 1991 he was elected to the Legislative Council for the Labour functional constituency, was returned again in 1995, sat in the Provisional Legislative Council from 1996 to 1998, and served in the first Legislative Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region for Labour from 1998 to 2000. In the legislature he spoke for workers, focusing on employee rights, occupational safety, retirement protection and employment, and gave views on the making and amendment of labour legislation, bringing union demands into the chamber; pragmatic in style, he valued dialogue with employers and the government and believed labour and management should settle differences through discussion. Awarded the Silver Bauhinia Star and appointed a Justice of the Peace, he built deep contacts and experience in the labour field over many years and was one of the important figures of Hong Kong's union movement. He died in 2022.