9.
only roughly 1/5 of Model Scale I employees are unionized, and then frequently by Communist unions which do not apparently espouse collective bargaining techniques, the government is not ostensibly responding to -any organised and articulate pressure from this group to integrate it
into MPS.
In overall terms, the range of differentials in the Hong Kong Civil Service is very wide. According to available figures, the highest point in the director's scale is 31 times the lowest point in the MPS scale. As always, differentials in the pay structure create potential
However, what possibly exacerbates perceptions of inequity
for unrest.
in the Hong Kong Civil Service may not be so much the differentials explicit in the actual salary scales as the additional fringe benefits accrueing
to particular classes of employee.
The non-pensionable status of many manual workers has already been mentioned. Yet apart from pensions-a-complex of allowances amounts to
For example, travel, educational different forms of "payment in kind". and entertainment allowances are distributed to different classes of
"air
employee.
Directorate level personnel deceive an "air conditioning allowance" which is not payable to other grades. Quite visibly, expatriate officers qualify for benefits not available to locally recruited officers. "Expatriates on contract are entitled to a 25% gratuity on completion of
their term, although it must be pointed out that the opportunity to join the civil service on contract rather than pensionable terms is also open
to-local officers.
But the crucial bone of contention apparently consists in the allocation
Expatriates in the of housing and the payment of housing allowances.