:
•
36-
기
217.
There are still other methods of payment of the supplemen- tation of wages as exemplified by the following extract from the "Wah Kiu Yat Po" of 13 February 1951:
218.
"With a view to easing the business difficulties encountered by its members the Hong Kong and Kowloon Bakers Association wrote to the Flour Merchants
ssociation requesting the latter's members to reduce the 1.5% chut dim (shop leaving) commission which Bakers and Confectioners have to pay when purchasing flour.
This request however was rejected by the Flour Merchants Association on the following grounds:
(a) the chut dim commissions all go to the
workers whose wages are so small that they rely on these commissions to make up their wages;
(b) since the war commodity prices have
been rising and a commission of 1.5% is not considered to be too high."
mong the lower paid workers employed by the smaller Chinese firms there is little evidence of industrial dissatisfaction. The refugees and others of the poorer classes are usually unorganised and in any case without some work and an income they would be hard put to it to avoid actual starvation. This, no doubt, has a pro- found effect on their outlook on life, If such workers took strike action they could and would easily be replaced.
219.
It is probable that many such workers would return to China if they were satisfied that conditions there were reasonably stable and food cheap and that they were unlikely to be conscripted and ultimately sent to Korca, Recently the possibility of return to China has been made more diffiqult for them in that they are now required to obtain an entry permit from the Communist authorities.
220.
In many of the larger Chinese factories the general wage basis may be said to rest on the ability of an average experienced woman worker to earn about three dollars a day. Male workers on time rates receive little more. Where men are employed on piece rates in a semi-skilled job their average wage seems to vary between $3 and $450 per day. In the silk mills male weavers were earning between $7 and $8 a day, but the male and female workers on unskilled time work in the same factory were paid $3 a day plus one meal. Skilled engineers in Chinese-owned establishments earn between $7 and $10 a day without food,
221.
In the rubber industry wage rates seem to be slightly lower. In the larger firms $2.80 a day is a fair average for a semi-skilled woman on piece rates although some earn as much as $5 or $6 a day.
222.
by no means entirely unfair statement setting out the women's views on wage rates, is contained in the following extract from an article by Miss Kwok Yick Ping, Chairman of the Hong Kong and Kowloon Rubber Shoe Workers Union.
"The fact that a woman accepts low pay for her services is no doubt due to circumstances where a Chinese woman has no social standing. When compelled to work she
has to reduce her daily necessities such as clothing, food, housing, etc. to strict minimum barely enough