5.
In this connection, I must point out that the reference made by the Advisory Committee on Salaried Employees and Professional workers regarding the legal provisions for working hours in Hong Kong on page 10 in Report II on Conditions of Work and Life of Employees in Commerce and Offices (Seventh Session, Geneva, 1974) is factually incorrect. With effect from 1st December 1971, the Factories and Industrial Undertakings Regulations made under the Factories and Industrial Undertakings Ordinance, Chapter 59, prescribe, under Regulation 9, that no proprietor shall employ any women or young persons (aged 14-17) in any industrial undertakings for more than eight hours a day or forty-eight hours a week. Regulation 14 further provides for a weekly rest day for women and young persons. As indicated in paragraph 3 above, all manual workers and non-manual workers earning HK$2,000 or less a month are entitled to four rest days a month under the Employment Ordinance, Chapter 57.
7.
In Hong Kong, the problem of reconciling the conflicting interests of the consuming public and the trade unions in the retail trades, as envisaged under the section "Distribution of Working Hours within the Week and the Day" on page 11 of Report II, does not arise. Employers, in the retail trades in particular, tend to arrange rosters for individaul employees within the week both to convenience the shoppers and to give employees comparable opportunities for rest, recreation and the fulfilment of their private and public obligations.
8.
As at 31st December 1973 there are 39 employees! unions in the wholesale and retail trade, and in the financing, insurance, real estate, business and personal services. The total declared membership in these unions stood at. 42,655. It is the policy of the Hong Kong Government to encourage the development and growth of responsible trade unions whose object is to care for the industrial, social and economic conditions of their members. This policy has been however hampered by the multiplicity of trade unions because of clanship and dialect, rival ideologies and general apathy towards the trade union movement.
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