1948. The management of the Dairy Farm Ice and Cold Storage Company, the Hong Kong and Kowloon Dairy Companies' Chinese Employees' Association and the Dairy Farm Soda Fountain Depart- ment of the Union of Workers in Western-Style Employment agreed to submit to arbitration the employees' request for the grant of a special allowance of $90 a month in addition to their current wages and allowances. They had maintained that this sum was necessary to bring earnings into line with living costs.
Professor R. Robertson, head of the Department of Economics at Hong Kong University, accepted the onerous position of arbitrator and was assisted in his deliberations by three assessors nominated by each of the parties. Although expenses for legal aid were offered by the company the workers chose to present their own cases. Their unfamiliarity with arbitration procedure and the temptation to indulge in oratory at public hearings made the work of the Tribunal difficult, but after eighteen meetings during February and the first half of March the arbitrator was able to make an award. While he did not consider that the full claim for $90 additional allowance could be admitted he agreed that there was evidence of disparity between earnings and prevailing living costs which merited the award of an additional allowance of $30 a month. The management accepted this award and some of the large utility concerns followed suit by giving similarly increased allowances to their workers.
In
One of the year's significant developments in the urban area was the steady growth of community or residents' associations amongst the Chinese. In spirit they in part looked back to the traditional Chinese kaifong, and in most cases have perpetuated that name by calling themselves Kaifong Welfare Associations. practice they set out at the same time to promote the welfare and general social improvement of all genuine residents in their districts. They aimed to do this as far as possible through encouraging self-help or, in the case of those in dire need, through good neigh- bourliness. The activities which they undertook for a start included the opening of schools and clinics, a pilot youth survey, the provision of new recreational facilities, domestic science classes, and the raising of further local divisions of the St. John Ambulance Brigade. Spectacular work was also done by certain of these associations in cooperation with Government in the organization of mass relief for tens of thousands of the victims of several disastrous fires in squatter settlements. After the Kowloon City fire in January a Relief and Rehabilitation Committee, under the chairmanship of a prominent kaifong leader, carried through a successful pilot scheme for re- settling several hundred families in the model new Homantin village.
In the port the year 1950 has been significant for increased shipbuilding activity indicating what may prove to be the beginning of a return to something like pre-war standards of output. New construction has included one 7,000-ton passenger and cargo vessel, a river passenger and cargo vessel, a salvage tug, and a large number of lighters, small craft for local services and lifeboats for every type of sea-going vessel. Six ferries for passengers and vehicles have been completed or were under construction at the end of the year.
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