13.
"service-wide" authority.
The staff associations comprising the staff
side account for less than 25% of total civil service union membership.
In fact, some 76 other unions are excluded from representation as the
situation now stands.
The problem of acute multi-unionism is acknowledged by both sides.
--
But no policy has been devised and implemented that would secure
representation at the central level for the multiplicity of departmental
and grade associations together with the Model Scale I employees.
On one hand, to foster the recognition of grade or departmental
associations on the SCSC would be to create a mass assembly rather than
a consultative or negotiating body. In addition, such a move would
undoubtedly encounter resistance from the associations already established
on it. On the other hand, to create a Junior Staff Council or a series
of committees designed to negotiate centrally with the grade or depart-
mental associations would perhaps entail an added though not perhaps
insuperable administrative burden. More importantly, a plurality of
central bargaining units may be thought to involve the official side in
a perpetual round of negotiations, with different grades or departments
of staff bent on furthering "leap frog" claims.
Aside from the debates over consultation versus negotiation and the
unrepresentative nature of SCSC, a third problematic feature of the
central machinery is that it supplies no adequate method for handling
individual or group grievances in a formal manner.
The constitution of SCSC states that one of the body's objectives
is:
"to provide machinery for dealing with grievances"(15).
·
(15) Hong Kong Government, Constitution of the Senior Civil Service
Council, Paragraph 7.