4.
Article 4 The Committee may require an assurance that there is equality of treatment in regard to consultation with representatives of employer and employee interests. Information given in various reports relating to the matters covered by Convention No.98 suggest that there is consultation with representative organisations of employers outside the Labour Advisory Board. Such con- sultation does not extend to representative organisations of workers. The local difficulties in this regard are fully understood but the Committee may require to be satisfied that any omission does not rest with government:
Articles 5 and 6 The Committee may regard the Hawker Control Force as being outside the accepted exclusions from the requirements of the Convention. As it is a disciplined body, however, the Committee would probably not question the exclusion provided this force is permitted to form, if it so desires, its own Staff Association.
Before I give authority for the declaration to be deposited, I request you to confirm that there would be no difficulty in meeting any Requests the Committee of Experts may make on the lines indicated in the preceding paragraph.
I have the honour to be Sir
Your most obedient humble Servant
James Callyha
P
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Mr Stuart
APPLICATION OF INTERNATIONAL LABOUR CONVENTION NO 98 TO HONG KONG
1. Please see Mr Foggon's minute of 25 November below.
2. I think in view of Parliamentary interest in IL Convention no 98 we should, as Mr Foggon suggests, go ahead and forward a declaration of full application.
3. If, in the event, the ILO are not satisfied on any particular issue, the Hong Kong Government will presumably be willing to make any further necessary changes in their laws. They did after all enact the Employment (Amendment) (No 2) Ordinance 1974 with the primary aim of being able to comply in full with the provisions of Convention 98.
26 November 1974
Encl
A L Wotton
Hong Kong & Indian Ocean Department
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Mr Wotton KKIOD
HXL 7/393/2
AFTLICATION OF INTERNATIONAL LABOUR CONVENTION NO 98 TO HONG KONG
1. International Labour Convention No.98 is one of the most important and together with Convention No.87 receives maximum attention from the Committee of Experts. Misa Swan is quite right, therefore, to have gone through the report on Convention No.98 with special
care.
2. It will be recalled that I wrote informally to the Chief of the International Labour Standards Department at the II0 a year ago. He gave me his views in a letter of 13 December 1973 which I subsequently conveyed to the Acting Commissionor for Labour in Hong Kong on 29 April 1974. (In the interval I visited Hong Kong and had discussions on the spot - referred to in para.18 of my report on my visit).
3. Mr Valticos, in his reply, dealt with Articles 1 and 2 and perhaps those could be cleared up first. In respect of Article 1, he thought that the rights and protection required should apply to workers not only already 'employees' but also to persons about to take up employment. This has been met by the new Section 210 of the Employment Ordinance (No.51 of 1974). There is no difficulty, therefore, about Article 1.
4.
As regards Article 2, Hong Kong have not chosen to put a specific provision in the law and wish to continue to rely on Section 36 of the Trade Unions Ordinance. As indicated in my letter of 29 April 1974 (Flag D), I think it would not be unreasonable to go ahead without the law being changed in the knowledge that should the matter be raised by the Committee of Experts (which is by no means certain since many countries do not have specific provisions in the law of the kind referred to by lir Valticos) the liong Kong Government is already aware of a possible query and it would not be difficult for them to meet the required change in the low, which would in my view be relatively uncontroversial.
5. I think that Article 3 is met and I am also satisfied about Article 4. There is nothing that the Hong Kong Government can do to force a trade union to co-operate with it and if the communist unions refuse to be either consulted or to accept the opportunity to be represented on, say, the Labout Advisory Board, that should not derogate from the Hong Kong Government's
such an obligations under Convention No.98;
explanation would, I am sure, be accepted by the Committee of Experts.
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