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cost of living differences) but about 10%-15% below Singapore, and half or less than those in Japan. In this connection it is noteworthy that the electronics industry maintains its unenviable position of being near the bottom of the league sable for wages, well below textiles and hardly better than plastic flowers. Since many of the firms involved are large overseas concerns (some American) who are using Hong Kong for the cheap production of components (often to be assembled elsewhere), it is relevant to quote from a recent memorandum put forward by the powerful AFL-CIO in the United States:-
"The US Government must stop helping and
subsidizing US companies in setting up and operating foreign subsidiaries. Sections 805.30 and 807 of the Tariff Schedules should be repealed; these sections of the Tariff Code provide especially low tariffs on imported goods, assembled abroad from US-made parts. Moreover, the US tax deferral on profits from foreign subsidiaries should be eliminated, so that the profits of these subsidiaries will be subject to the US corporate income tax for the year they are earned.
The government should regulate, supervise and curb the substantial outflows of American capital for the investments of US companies in foreign operations.
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The government should regulate, supervise and curb the export of American technology by regulating the foreign license and patent arrangements of American companies.
The government should press, in appropriate agencies, for the establishment of international fair labor standards in world trade."
32. The continuation of depressed wages in industries using advanced technologies can only provide further impetus to It is pressures such as these from the American unions. interesting that the normal market force cf labour shortage does not appear to operate with much effect in the electronics industry since apparently the work has a superior status to ordinary factory work in the eyes of local young women, who corstitute the majority of the labour force. An attempt is underway, it would seem, to organise a trade union in the electronics industry and the comment of the manager of the Motorola factory as quoted in the China Mail of 30 November 1971 is significant: "None of Motorola's plants around the world is unionised and we are the largest non-union firm in the United States. This is not a company policy. Oul workers around the world just don't see the need for a union in the plant."!
Picketing
33.
The picketing provisions of the Trade Union Registration Ordinance (Cap 332) follow broadly the wording of United Kingdom
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