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two-thirds favoured them in principle.
But again, the proportion of
people who said that unions should pursue particularised activities
exceeded that of ostensible union supporters the chosen functions here
being collective bargaining, dealing with individual grievances,
securing workers more say in the Government generally, and providing
union benefits or social and recreational facilities. What was
particularly remarkable was that, of all employees interviewed, some
87% said that if unions did do such things, then workers should join
them.
58. There seems little, then, in the special nature of "Hong Kong Man"
which would have prevented the development of a normal labour movement.
Indeed, there are clearly needs and aspirations among the workers of
Hong Kong which are not met by existing labour organisations, whose
failure to act as a vehicle for the expression of those needs accounts
in large measure for the negative attitude workers generally display,
both to them and to certain well-intentioned official labour reforms.
Which brings us to the character of the unions themselves.
The Character of the Hong Kong Labour Movement
59. The short answer is that, with few significant exceptions, the
so-called trade unions of Hong Kong are not trade unions in any normal
sense at all, but a locally-specific combination of friendly society and
politico-cultural organisation, which the political situation of
Hong Kong has obliged to adopt the formal appearance of trade unions and
to fulfil (under pressure both from the Labour Department and their
members) certain trade union functions. The operations of collective
bargaining and grievance settlement represent, in general, a minor part
of their activity. The recently-retired Registrar of Trade Unions, for
instance, a man of long experience, could name only two employee
organisations as "high-powered trade unions" (meaning bodies with a
specifically-orientated drive toward economic collective organisation
and occupational advancement); the Cable and Wireless Non-expatriate
Staff Association and the Professional Teachers' Union (each of which
has a certain record of successful action in recent major disputes). And
our own interviews would certainly confirm that the latter, at least, is
distinctive.
/60. Employee