In the first place section 3 of this Ordinance makes a strike or
lock-out illegal "if it has any object other than or in addition to the
furtherance of a trade dispute within the trade or industry in which the [strikers or employees] are engaged and is c [strike or lock-out]
designed or calculated to coerce the Government either directly or by
inflicting hardship upon the community", Those who start or who go on
with such a strike or lock-out or who support it financially are liable
to a fine of $1,000 and 6 months imprisonment.
Secondly, by section 5 breaches of contract by employees of public
utilities are made an offence where they have reasonable cause to believe
the probably consequence, failing extraordinary measures, would be to deprive the inhabitants of the supply of water, gas, electricity, trans-
port, telephone or sanitary services""wholly or to a great extent".
Hong Kong goes
This is a slight extension of the English position. even further, however, when it makes any strike illegal where the striker has reasonable cause to believe the probable consequence would, failing the adoption of extraordinary measures be" to endanger human life or to cause serious bodily injury or to expose valuable property destruction or serious injury",
....
to
The first thing to be said about these provisions is that, even in 1987, they have never been used. But they are there and they are available should industrial relations in the Colony deteriorate. Among other things they mean that a strike concerning donditions of employment but having an additional object of, say, pressuring Government to enforce these con- ditions by legislation would be illegal. They also mean that every "sympathetic" strike in support of persons outside the strikers' "trade or industry" (e.g., a strike of lorry drivers in support of textile workers)
is criminal if it is likely to coerce the Government in any way. Again, since injury to property in this Ordinance probably includes economic loss it can be argued that any strike is criminel where the probable consequence is serious economic loss to the employer a ludicrous position, since this a possible consequence of any strike.
July 17, 1970.
JR/pl
[TO BE CONCLUDED]