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CONFIDENTIAL
25
Sir L. Monson
Essential Services Legislation Hong Kong
I have two small comments on your revised draft:
Paragraph 5:
Paragraph 6(a):
I suggest that to emphasise the point we refer to "political agitation, concealed in industrial guise".
the provision we are commending is contained in paragraph 1(1) of the model legislation but would
find its place in Section 5 of the Hong Kong
legislation.
I have inserted amendments accordingly.
2.
On the points in paragraph 3 of your minute:
(1) The Hong Kong legislation provides in Section 5(1) that the
period of notice to be given by an individual employee should be according to his contract of service and in Section 5(3) that in the case of Government employees (other than daily paid) the contract of service should be deemed to require at least one month's notice in writing. The model legislation (paragraph 1(1)) also provides that the period of notice should be according to the contract of service, but in the proviso permitting collective withdrawal of labour prescribes in that event a fixed uniform period of notice (fourteen days)) It was my intention that we should leave Hong Kong free to retain the existing distinction between Government and other
workers in essential services if they wished, when providing for the notice required in the case of collective withdrawal; this is practicable since the Government workers are organised in separate unions. I can see however that in the circumstances of collective withdrawal the absence of a prescribed period may cause difficulties for unions
uniform
representing non-Government workers whose contracts of service may prescribe differing periods of notice. But this is a problem which will have to be considered in Hong Kong in the light of local conditions. We might, I suggest, add the following in brackets at the end of paragraph 6(a):
CONFIDENTIAL
"(it is