6th May
The dismissed workers who had assembled outside the Kowloon
factory for some days attempted to interfere with the movement of produce from the factory. Police intervention resulted in 21 arrests including that of the Union's Chairman.
7th May
The Rubber and Plastic Workers' Union set in the evening
and attempted to put forwarastu following demands: -
1.
2.
3.
40
The immediate release of the arrested workers. Punishment of the evil-doers and compensation. Guarantee of the workers' personal safety.
No interference henceforth by the police in labour disputes.
8th May
The arrested workers appeared in Court. One had pleaded guilty to a charge of unlawful assembly and was fined 100 H.K.dollars; the others pleaded not guilty and were remanded on bail until the 16th May. Six workers who claimed to represent about 200 workers in the Hong Kong factory (mainly right-wing) asked the Labour Department to inform the management of their desire to return to work. The line taken in the left-wing press was that the British authorities in a planned and premeditated way hɛve organised a series of bloody repressions of workers and patriots in the Kowloon area amounting to fascist violence.
Press The moŘEŠře also referred to the increased use of Hong Kong by "U.S. imperialism as an aggressive base". It added that, a ter the Macao affair many U.S./Ching elements concentrated in Hong Kong.
prass..
*-they would carry out their activities. Briĝish authorities in Hong Kong ought to recognise the error that they committed on the 6th
accept May and agree the workers' new inmediate demands.
9th May
Press
The left-wing mambans reported that the Executive Committee of the Federation of Trade Unions had issued a statement condemning what it described as police interference in labour disputes and the "unprecedented serious bloodshed and repressive violence". It alleged that some 100 "patriotic workers" who had been bystanders had been beaten up.
It accused the British authorities of attempting to treat the workers as criminals.