18.
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Paragraph 17 (a) above suggests that mutual adjustment will be necessary to take account of political realities here and the situation in Hong Kong. One such example is of current concern. The International Committees of the TUC and the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party have pressed hard for the appointment of someone drawn from the independent (ie non-Communist, non-KMT) unions to the Legislative Council in June. This is on the grounds that such an appointee could bring working class consideratians to bear on the government process. In his meetings with both Committees the Governor has been unable to convince them of the undesirability of appointing members of what are, indeed, small and unrepresentative unions to the Council. This is consistent with his general view that LegCo members need to be people with wide experience of community affairs and of high quality since the Council has in effect, certain executive functions; works very closely with the official side of the Government on most matters relating to the Colony's affairs; and therefore has much greater access to confidential information than, say, Members of Parliament. In his view LegCo is more analgous to a Cabinet, or body of Ministers, than to a Legislature on the Westminster model. Until there is representation from organised labour, however, it would be impossible for the Secretary of State to convince the TUC and NEC that proper account is taken of working class interests.
19. At the non-governmental level, a conspicuous feature of Hong Kong is the weakness and fragmentation of the trade union movement and the absence of collective bargaining on any signifi- cant scale. Total trade union membership is only 15.4% of the working population. This is in part due to the fragmentation of industry: out of some 25,000 establishments in 1974 only 118 employed more than 500 people and no less than 15,000 employed less than 10. It is also in part due to differing political allegiances, with pro-Communist trade unions representing nearly three quarters of the total membership (231,000); pro-Taiwan unions representing 37,000 and politically non-aligned unions mainly in the public sector representing 49,000.
Various attempts
/have
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