15
28.
on personally. Many hope to move up to become
independent entrepreneurs themselves, or at least for
promotion to supervisory and higher posts. They are
not interested in collective associations which might
imply a sacrifice of individual to group interests.
There is in any case a Chinese dislike of
"confrontation" situations.
This builds up largely to an argument that collective organisation
and social protection are not necessary to the Hong Kong worker because
he or she operates effectively in a rational and competitive market,
understands that the employer is operating in the same way, and also
gains from the situation because of special cultural factors in it.
29. The second cluster of arguments runs rather as follows. Powerful
business interests are the major influence in Hong Kong, and have been
able, in the past at least, to effectively frustrate advanced social
expenditure or labour legislation, so that this has not appeared to
workers a hopeful road to progress. The absence of political democracy,
combined with the divisions in the trade union movement, has meant that
there is in any case no effective channel to formulate collective
aspirations and interests. The unions are not particularly effective
anyway, and outside the public service, union membership involves a
political identification which the worker might find embarrassing either
now or later. Labour organisation is not a road to power or prestige
for able individuals, and employers have discriminated against active
trade unionists. Workers with a refugee background, "between Big
Brother and the deep blue sea", are naturally insecure and do not wish
to become labelled as "troublemakers". Demand for labour has generally
been high in Hong Kong, but in individual firms and trades it is
sufficiently variable for employers to get rid of awkward people without
an open appearance of victimisation. The essence of this argument is
thus that the superficial acceptance by workers of the existing state of
affairs does not arise from their ability to exploit it to their own
satisfaction as individuals, or from an innate dislike of collective
action, but from the lack of an effective alternative course of action
for them.
30. At first sight, there is evidence for both varieties of argument.
In support of the first cluster of propositions, for instance, it is
clear that certain types of worker are highly mobile: some factories
/have