Mr Murray
CONFIDENTIAL
аккиз
HKK.43011
DA ORVSMY NO. 51
1973
Ми Минай Душа Mr Quantrill 62
Grateful submission racking
for a new
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REGISTRY Action Takan
of
raking account the Munister's Views.
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PS/Lord Goronwy-Roberts
HONG KONG: SHORTHAND AND AUDIO TYPISTS ASSOCIATION (SATAY
1.
The Political Secretary of the South Suburban Co-operative Society, Mr Bob Irwin, has written to Lord Goronwy-Roberts asking what action is being taken by the FCO on the pay and conditions of
SATA.
2. The dispute between the Hong Kong Government and SATA achieved wide publicity in the UK following the visit here in January of the Association's President and Vice-President, Mrs Matilda Cheung and Miss Vivienne So, who managed to interest several MPs and other groups in their case. On 18 January, the Minister met Mrs Cheung and Miss So, and undertook to help bring the dispute to a satisfactory conclusion by asking Hong Kong to re-open negotiations with a view to achieving an interim settlement. Mr Stewart accordingly wrote to Mr Bridge, the Hong Kong Secretary for the Civil Service on
26 January.
3. In his reply, Mr Bridge pointed out that the suggestions we had made were all open to objections of one sort or another. He claimed that the dispute was no longer a live issue in Hong Kong, particularly since the great majority of the Association's members had either accepted the Government's proposed restructuring (the original cause of the dispute) or had been appointed since it was introduced. He pointed out that to re-open the case by making some concessions now could have serious repercussions in Hong Kong.
4. We accept Mr Bridge's final contention that this case is essentially an internal matter which must be dealt with in Hong Kong. As he says, if it were to be believed that we were prepared to intervene directly in disputes of this kind, we could find ourselves faced with a flood of direct appeals to Ministers over individual minor disputes. But we do have a responsibility to ensure that a proper system exists to enable such disputes to be satisfactorily
/resolved
CONFIDENTIAL
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