CO129-504-7 Illegal Strikes and Lock-outs Ordinance- 1927 21-3-1927 - 26-11-1927 — Page 23

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HONG KONG LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL.

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He

and to breaches of contracts of service in certain special cases, to promote the independence of trade unions established within the Colony, and for purposes connected with the aforesaid purposes." said-In introducing this Bill at the last meeting of the Council I referred to certain amendments which it was proposed should be moved in Committee. Since last Thursday we have decided to propose three further amendments in addition to those which I then mentioned. Two of these appear on the sheet which was circulated to Honourable Members. The third does not appear on that paper. The two amend- ments which appear on the sheet that was circulated are amendments proposed to be made in Clause 6. The first is in Sub-section (1) where it is proposed to substitute the words

66 an agreement for service under " for the words " a contract of service with." The clause will then read "No person who is employed in the service of the Crown under the Government of Hong Kong shall wilfully break an agreement for service under the Crown if he knows or has reasonable cause to believe that the probable consequence of his so doing, either alone or in combination with others, would, failing the adoption of extraordinary measures, be to hinder or prevent the discharge of the functions of the Government.'

""

This amendment is made in order to make the terminology of the clause agree better with the terminology of General Orders. It also serves to mark the distinction between the terms of service under the Crown and the terms of service under some employer other than the Crown. Service under the Crown differs, of course, in a number of its details from service under any other employer, the great distinc- tion being that, speaking generally, to every agreement for service under the Crown there is the implied condition that the Crown is at liberty to dispense with the services of its servants at any time.

The second amendment proposed to be made in Clause 6 is the addition of a new sub-section (2). The proposed new sub-section reads as follows:-' "For the purpose of sub-section (1), and without prejudice to the interpretation of any express term of the agreement other than a term relating to notice, a person who is employed in the service of the Crown shall be deemed to break his agreement for service under the Crown if he absents himself from duty without leave and without having given to the head of his department one month's notice in writing terminating with the last day of a calendar month, or if he wilfully refuses duty, or if he wilfully omits to perform his duty, provided that the provisions of this sub-section relating to notice shall not apply to any person who is engaged by the day or who is paid daily."

The effect of the sub-section, of course, continued the ATTORNEY- GENERAL, is that in the circumstances contemplated in sub-section (1) of clause 6, no Government servant is allowed to leave his duty without giving one month's notice terminating on the last day of the calendar month except in the cases of servants who are engaged by the day or paid daily.

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