OCCUPATIONS, WAGES AND LABOUR ORGANIZATION
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refused to discuss the matters raised by the union or to re-instate the two committee members. It put into effect a number of pay increases and took steps to assist certain workers who were in the hands of money-lenders.
The Hong Kong Coal Workers' General Union. In July a letter was addressed to the Labour Department by the union stating that the wages of coal workers had not changed since 1946. An increase of 50% was requested to take effect from 1st August. The issue was complicated by the fact that the other parties to the matter were a number of merchant firms with no representative association. How- ever, as a result of meetings held in the Labour Department and by the exercise of good sense and goodwill by all concerned, a satisfactory compromise of 20%, based on the actual rise of the Retail Price Index since 1947, was arrived at and wages were increased by this amount.
The New China Enamelware Company (H.K.) Ltd. Established manufacturers in the Colony's enamelware industry have for some time found business difficult, partly because of conditions in export markets, but mainly because of cut-throat competition within the Colony by certain small producers of inferior enamelware offered at the cheapest possible prices. The manufacturers' association in this indus- try has not been effective_in, protecting its members. In the case of the New China Enamelware Company the trouble centred in the enamelling section where the workers, most of whom came from Shanghai about ten years ago, were said to work more slowly than Cantonese workers in the enamelling sections in other factories. The management claimed that this bottle-neck had caused production to decline to an uneconomic level. On 9th December it intro- duced a
new system of employment with the object of increasing production and lowering earnings slightly. The Shanghai workers concerned refused to accept the change, although the Cantonese workers in the enamelling section. were apparently prepared to accept it. A stoppage of work