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EMPLOYMENT
department's work through a representative cross-section of the community.
The Registry of Trade Unions deals with applications by new trade unions for registration under the Trade Unions and Trade Disputes Ordinance, with applications by registered unions for registration of alterations in rules, of change in 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 send annual returns to the Registrar before 1st June each year, showing changes in membership figures and the names of the principal officials, and to send him the audited accounts within one month of their presentation to members. The Department prosecuted twenty three workers' unions and one employers' association for late transmission of accounts in 1960, and one workers' union for submitting its annual return late.
Seven new trade unions were registered, including one employers' association, but nine (seven of workers and two of employers) were removed from the register; seven had ceased to exist, one had become a society and the other (an employers' association) had its registration cancelled for violating provisions of the Ordinance. The year ended with 315 unions on the register, this total being made up of 240 workers' unions, 63 organizations of merchants or employers, and 12 mixed organizations of employers and workers.
INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS
Trade unions. The number of trade unions of workers is greater than practical needs alone would require. The movement is split by political considerations and splintered for ethnic, lingual, and other reasons. Apart from a small number of independent unions, all are affiliated to or associated with one of two local federations.
The Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions, the FTU, supports the policies of the Chinese People's Government. It has 64 affiliated unions, most of whose members work in shipyards, textile mills or public utilities, and as seamen. 29 other unions, nominally independent, align themselves with and take part in the activities of the FTU. In 1960, as in previous years, the FTU continued its policy of providing welfare benefits not only to members of