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Government of Hong Kong is at present negotiating with industry with a view
to reducing the statutory naximum, although industrial concerns,
particularly in the textile industry, have in practice gradually been
roducing their hours of work to eight hours a day. It is taking powers to
provide for a phased reduction over a specific period to a 48 hours a week
for all women and young persons employed in industry with adjustments to
permissible overtine.
3. Trade Unions: With the exception of a small neutral and independent
sognent, workers' unions are organised into two political groups the Fedoration of Trade Unions (Communist and Peking controlled) and the Trados Union Council (K. M.T. dominated). Although the number of unions
sympathetic to the T.U.C. far exceeds those adhering to the F.T.U., both
the declared and estimated paid up nonbership figures of the T.U.C. are in
fact substantially lower. The T.U.C. is affiliated to the International
Confederation of Free Trade Unions and two international Trade Secretariats
have been active in Hong Kong, i.e. the International Transport Workers' Federation (I.T.F.) and the International Tailoring and Garment Workers' Federation (I.T.G.W.F.).
4. Only occasionally do these two bodies and their constituent unions
function as effective industrial organisations and then never in concert
since co-operation between the two is out of the question. They refuse in
fact to sit at the same table. Divided politically and further separated
by differences in dialect, the number of unions has grown beyond the
practical needs. Attempts to improve the trade union structure have failed
in spite of the Hong Kong Government's efforts to promote trade union
education, and the efforts of some international trade union organisations.
5. The rivalry between right and left wing unions, coupled with their
failure to get down to genuino industrial activity, creates difficulties in
the matter of their recognition, and many employers are reluctant to accord
recognition. Attempts at Government conciliation have recently been
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/frustrated