4 18/6
CONFIDENTIAL
Sent
15th March, 1968.
160
I ought to have written ages ago to thank you for your letter of 10th January enclosing the final version of the Executive Council tc paper on the legislative programme of the Labour Department, the but contarlier version of which I had seen in Hồng Kong.
repented 12-151
151 2.
The paper has been studied with great interest here. The Department's full legislative programme is more formidable than most of us here thought, although we recall that when you were on leave last year you mentioned that some twenty to thirty pieces of legislation were in the pipe-line. 1 think we are agreed that it is important to maintain steady progress on the labour front to meet the challenge in the new phase of comunist confrontation;
and from our
talks last December I know that you will be keeping a close watch on
the drafting and legislative programme.
3. We were glad to see that in the departmental list the new Employment Bill and the amendment of the Workmen's Compensation Ordinance have a high priority and that other items are included on the Secretariat's priority lists. Now that Goodwin has joined you the Minister of State hopes that it will be possible to bring forward more quickly some of the desirable measures lower down in the order, on which progress has been delayed through pressure on existing staff. 4. We agree with the Commissioner of Labour that legislation on joint consultation and compulsory conciliation (items (x) and (xii) in the Executive Council paper) needs to be proceeded with slowly. You may recall that George Foggon took the same view in paragraph 16 of his report and envisaged a period in which such procedures were introduced on a voluntary basis before being made compulsory and applied generally by legislation. On the question of staff, is it yet possible to say whether Price or Bennett will be returning to Hong Kong at the end of their current contracts? If not, we shall
Sir David Trench, KCMG,, MC.
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