16
Joint consultation, quite apart from its intention, cannot be held to
compensate for the weakness of collective bargaining in Hong Kong.
24.
Perhaps the most extraordinary situation arises in the Public
Service itself. There is an annual discussion of possible salary revisions
through the Senior Civil Service Council, chaired by the Secretary for
the Civil Service, and composed of "official side" members and what are
described in the last Report on the Civil Service (1975 76) as members
nominated by the three main Staff Associations (the Hong Kong Chinese
Civil Servant's Association, the Association of Expatriate Civil Servants
of Hong Kong and the Senior Non-Expatriate Officers' Associations)".
Of the 100,000 or so public servants in Hong Kong, these three associations
have a total membership below 6,500; they represent, moreover, predominently
the upper grades of the Civil Service (other than the 500 or so members
of the top "directorate", which have a separate standing review committee
for pay). There are over 80 trade unions of public servants (who appear
least to be at 30% organised) several of which claim memberships larger than
any of the above three. So that even the majority of government-employed
trade unionists, including virtually all the manual workers, are excluded
from these consultations. We are aware this is a situation the
administration is now interested to remedy; we cite it only as a major
illustration of the immaturity of normal industrial relations development
in Hong Kong.
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25.
There
We can perhaps add a final points of illustration here.
is a provision of long standing (the Trade Boards Ordinance of 1940), which permits legal wage boards analagous to the present British Wages
Councils to be established to order statutory minimum wage-rates in
particular trades where this is thought desirable. The procedure has
and no representation to apply it has ever been made. never been used, The Labour Relations Ordinance adopted in August 1975
would appeur to make it possible for a union to push disputes to the
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