13
unions are associated with the F.T.U., and the smallest are found in the
"neutral group". Indeed, it is clear that much of the recent growth in
the number of unions has occurred in the public service, where a more
tolerant attitude towards union membership and activity has apparently
helped to promote a proliferation of small organisations. Three-
quarters of the 40 or so new employee organisations registered in the
four years to end-1975
were in the public service proper, and several
of the rest were in semi-public occupations such as teaching and
hospitals. The multiplication of civil service organisations appears to
be accelerating: for the year 1975/76 the annual Report on the Civil
that
Service recorded/their number rose from 66 to 86.
19.
It has been said to us on several occasions that less than 5%
of the employed labour force of Hong Kong is covered by collective
agreements. I know of no systematic basis on which this figure could be
calculated if only because the term "collective agreement" is itself
J
open to wide interpretation. But if taken to mean that wages, pay
structures and conditions or terms of employment are negotiated in
detail between firms or employer organisations and trade union represent
ives and embodied in signed agreements which are regularly revised,
I should think the figure, if anything, an exaggeration. It is true
that unions may occasionally reach understandings with employers which
oover a much larger number of workers than the union's own membership.
On the other hand, many of these negotiations are of an ad hoc character, arising out of specific disputes, and there appears a general reluctance
on the part of private employers to actually sign agreements.
20.
One or two signed agreements between employers' associations
and trade unions which I had translated appeared to me of the most elementary character, covering merely basic minimum wage-rates and over- time payment, with very few associated conditions of a minor character.
..../