For information
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XCRI(80)1 99 Copy No
NOTE FOR EXECUTIVE COUNCIL
•
COURSES ON INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS FOR
STAFF ASSOCIATION OFFICIALS HKK 43011
Attendance at courses on industrial relations for officials of civil service staff associations was referred to briefly at the meeting on 18th December 1979. This note sets out the existing position for the information of Members.
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Present Policy
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It has not hitherto been the Government's policy to organise training courses itself for officials of staff associations, primarily because it was felt that courses run by management would be viewed with suspicion by staff associations. Instead, arrangements have been made to assist staff association officials to attend courses and seminars run by outside bodies, both in Hong Kong and overseas.
Existing Training Opportunities
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Training in industrial relations for staff association officials
has taken three main forms.
G.S. 84
(a) Industrial Relations Course in UK
sponsored by the Labour Department
The Labour Department, using funds provided by the British Technological Cooperation Awards, has been offering annually to trade unionists in Hong Kong a place in the Industrial Relations Course for Overseas Trade Unionists organised by the Department of Employment in the United Kingdom. On three occasions, the place was offered to the main staff associations in the civil service. This 14-week course covers British industrial relations, negotiating techniques, productivity bargaining, job evaluation and work study, with a two-week residential course in Oxford University on development economics and industrial democracy. A civil service nominee who attended the course in 1977 reported that it had made him realise that "good industrial relations should not be based only on the force of argument and the argument of force, but also on the mutual understanding that both management and the staff side were expected to act reasonably and responsibly".
This course has proved successful in developing an awareness of the management viewpoint, and it is proposed to seek additional places for staff association officials in future.
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