amalgamation of unions and the employment of paid officials which required the permission of the Registrar. Mr Hurst said that in
these respects practice was more liberal than the letter of the law would suggest: amalgamation depended mainly on obtaining majority support from the unions' executives and the Registrar's consent
to have paid officials had not been refused since 1969.
5.
Mr McCluskie drew attention to the weak state of the trade
unions in the shipping industry and to the fact that the ILO Maritime Conventions regarding seamen's conditions had not been applied by the Colony. He recognised that the Marine Superintendent had conscientiously negotiated with the shipowners on behalf of seamen; but in the nature of things this was no substitute for a proper collective bargaining procedure. He also thought it was wrong that training of seamen was for those who could pay the fees and not for the workforce generally. Mr Hurst said that the Marine Superintendent had had some success in negotiating wage rates for deep sea seamen: the minimum rate was HK$1,020 per month compared with HK$540 laid down by the ILO, a much higher rate than that operating in many of Hong Kong's neighbours, including Singapore. Fees for training were low and often subsidised or waived. Training leading to recognised Certificates of Competence was undertaken by the Hong Kong Polytechnic at subsidised rates and in many cases students were sponsored by shipowners who paid their fees. Mr Hurst promised to let Mr McCluskie have a copy of the material sent earlier in the year to Mr Slater of the NUS on these same subjects.
6.
Such a
Mr McCluskie added that it was wrong for the workforce in Hong Kong to be entirely at the mercy of the industrialists who had managed to drive wage rates down over the past two years. thing had not happened in the United Kingdom since the 1930s. Sir Murray MacLehose recognised that this had happened to some degree in the building industry but that generally monetary wages had not fallen. As in other industrialised societies, real wages had
/inevitably