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HONG KONG ANNUAL REPORT
The Registry of Trade Unions is responsible for dealing with applications by new trade unions for registration under the Trade Unions and Trade Disputes Ordinance, and with applications by registered unions for registration of alterations of rules, of change of name or of amalgamation, and with dissolutions. The Registrar also has the power to cancel the registration of a union in certain circumstances.
Registered trade unions are required by the Ordinance to trans- mit to the Registrar before 1st June each year annual returns, showing changes in membership figures and the names of the principal officials, and their audited accounts within one month of presentation to members. During the year the Department prosecuted seventeen unions for late submission of annual returns. Certain unions were for the first time prosecuted for late trans- mission of accounts, while the registration of one organization was cancelled for this offence.
The year ended with 312 unions on the register as against 307 in December 1957. Eleven new trade unions (all of workers) were registered, but six organizations (three of workers, two of employers and one mixed) were removed from the register. While the three workers' unions had ceased to exist, and the two employers' associations became limited companies, the mixed organization was cancelled for failure to transmit accounts in time. The total of 312 registered unions is made up of 238 workers' unions, 65 organizations of merchants or employers and 9 mixed organizations of employers and workers.
INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS.
Labour Organization. The number of workers' unions on the register is in excess of practical needs. Most of the trade unions in the Colony continue to be affected by political considerations. With the exception of a small number of independent unions, the majority of workers' unions are affiliated to one of the two trade union federations.
The Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions, which supports the Chinese People's Republic, has sixty four affiliated unions, the majority of whose members are employed in leading shipyards and utility companies. There are in addition twenty one unions,