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HONG KONG GOVERMENT EDUCATIONAL WORKERS ASSOCIATION
c/o Chinese Civil Servants' Association, Wylie Road, Kowloon.
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The Right Honourable,
The Lord Shepherd, P.C.,
Minister of State,
Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
Sir,
5th June, 1969.
Equal Pay for Hong Kong Government Servants
We respectfully beg to bring to Your Lordship's attention the attached copy of a petition submitted to His Excellency the Governor on 9th February, 1969, in which this Association made the following request:
That His Excellency provide for the application to government teachers of any equal pay scheme which Government proposes to introduce, at the same time and to the same extent as it is applied to all other grades in the Government Service where men and women are, like teachers, doing identical work, or are doing similar work of virtually equal value.
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Since this petition was submitted, consultations at the Senior Civil Service Council level have been continuing on the Hong Kong Government's proposed scheme to implement the policy of equal pay for equal work in the Hong Kong Government Service which was adopted in 1965 in accordance with the recommendations of the 1965 Salaries Commission. The point now reached in these consultations is that the Staff Side of the Senior Civil Service Council has been asked by the Official Side to agree on behalf of all serving officers to a scheme which provides for the implementation of equal pay over a six-year period starting from April, 1969, subject to the following conditions:
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(a) Nurses' and teachers' inclusion in the scheme is to be deferred for an unspecified period pending future revision of their salary structures; (b) Certain unspecified categories of officers are to be excluded from
the scheme at Government's discretion;
(c) The categories of officers to be included in the scheme are to be decided
upon at Government's discretion.
In the view of this Association these conditions are entirely unreasonable, and any Senior Civil Service Council agreement reached subject to these conditions could not be regarded by government teachers or nurses or by the exluded grades
Strong of officers as being a justly binding agreement made on their behalf. representations to this effect have already been made by government teachers
Nurses and and nurses to the Staff Side of the Senior Civil Service Council. teachers number approximately half of the 11,500 women officers in the Government Service, and of all the women in the Service they are the groups most clearly entitled to equal pay under the provisions of the equal pay policy adopted in 1965.
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This Association has no authority to speak on behalf of government nurses, but on behalf of government teachers we have written to the Staff Side of the Senior Civil Service Council giving notice that we should object strongly to the signing of any agreement to prolong the life of the Senior Civil Service Council beyond 16th June, 1969, which is the date of expiry of the present Council, if the effect of such an agreement would be to make binding on all members of the Government Service the introduction of the equal pay scheme at present offered by Government. This scheme is not in keeping with either the spirit or the letter of the policy recommended by the 1965 Salaries Commission; it is not acceptable to government nurses or teachers; and it would be a travesty of justice and of good labour relations if it were forced on the Government Service in the guise of an agreement reached by Government and its employees as a result of fair consultation between both sides.
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