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private sector. The Hong Kong TUC proposed that employers should be compelled by law to recognize and bargain with trade unions and that collective agreements should be legally enforceable. Again Professor Turner indicates that this would be politically impossible.
13.
The Professor's final conclusions are that there should be:
(1) a legal minimum wage;
(2)
that there is a gap in labour relations at the workplace level itself which is critical and with which neither the major union organizations nor the Labour Department had been actively concerned;
(3) that the government's own labour relations are in something of a mess and should be improved since government is the pace-setter for private employment.
Further study is required of all these three points, and Professor Turner has in fact arranged privately for an extensive study of government labour relations.
Action by FCO
14. At our meeting with Professor Turner and Dr Fosh, we shall need to ascertain whether Professor Turner intends to amend his Report. to take full account of the more detailed survey carried out by Dr Fosh. (He has told the OLA that Dr Fosh and Professor Hart are happy with it- see OLA's minute of 13 January 1977.) Subject to any amendments he may make we can edit the report and submit it without Appendices A and B. We then have to decide whether to recommend to Ministers that further studies, as suggested by Professor Turner, should be carried out. My own view is that, whilst further studies may recommend suitable ways of improving the lot of workers in Hong Kong, whatever the conclusions, because of the peculiar political condition of Hong Kong they will not lead to the formation of a strong union movement.
15. Given the cultural background of the Chinese, perhaps the best hope for development of trade unions in Hong Kong lies in the direction of house unions or in the formation of workers' Consultative Committees under the aegis of the Labour Department. But even these proposals, if implemented, would not cover the majority of workers since, as Professor Turner points out, 60% of manufacturing establishments employ less than ten workers in each. Furthermore, a high proportion of workers are employed in shops, offices and restaurants.
16. As a first step, Professor Turner's Report will need to be submitted to the OLCC who will doubtless send their comments to Ministers. On receipt of these comments we shall then need to decide whether further studies should be set in motion, and to what ends.
17. Professor Turner has complained about FCO communications and arrangements for payment for a Study. We should avoid being drawn into discussions about this. I have asked the Professor to let me have a statement of the amount he thinks we owe him and I have
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