Association of Scientific Technical and Managerial Staffs General Secretary Clive Jenkins
10-26A Jamestown Road, London NW1 7DT telephone 01.-267 4422
Your Excellency
telox no 25226
6th June 1978
Artebed
Hong Kong Government Shorthand-Audio
Typists' Association
You wrote to our General Secretary, Mr. Clive Jenkins, on 18th April last, in reply to his query as to what progress had been made concerning the claim of the Shorthand-Audio Typists' Association. He is currently abroad, but he has asked me to deal with this matter on his behalf, as I was with him in Hong Kong, and had the opportunity of meeting the representatives of this Association there and when they recently came to London.
We have been supplied with a considerable amount of back- ground material. According to this information, the SATs as a unit have never accepted the restructuring arrangements. Indeed, it would seem that no mandate was given by the SAT's for restructuring to be accepted on their behalf. We have been provided with copies of correspondence and of Minutes which seem very adequately to confirm this.
It seems to us that the members of this Association are complaining on a number of grounds:
(a) Loss of promotion prospects. The new arrangements make it more difficult for an SAT to achieve promotion, and the alternative promotional prospect that of promotion to senior typing supervisor does not sufficiently compensate for the loss of the channels that were previously available.
(b)
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It would seem that promotion. In the past has been from SAT's (which were regarded as a "training grade") to Personal Secretary 11, from which there could be promotion to Personal Secretary 1, and in exceptional cases to Senior Personal Secretary. Our information is that these opportunities have been substantially reduced.
Salary; despite the fact that SAT's are expected to have roughly the same academic qualification as a clerical officer 11, this latter grade now gets paid around 500 dollars a month more than an SAT: it would appear that the restructuring has altered the salary balance very significantly in favour of clerical officer 11, as compared with SAT's.
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