XN000022-1973-10-31 — Page 32

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Wednesday, October 31, 1973

"Providing the dispute does not occur in any essential services,

I do not propose that the government should interfere unless it is a

'dispute of right' and, in this case, we now have the Labour Tribunal

which is empowered to handle and arbitrate disputes of right," he said.

Dr. Chung noted, however, that if the number of man-days lost

through strikes and lockouts could be taken as a measure for assessing the

harmony between employers and employees, then Hong Kong's industrial

relations ranked "among the best in the world."

He also welcomed the impending introduction of new legislation to

provide severance payments to redundant workers and observed that all workers

would be gratified by this.

There were few companies which provided for redundancy payments for

manual workers he said, and he fully supported proposals to offer legal

job protection to workers who had served a particular employer for a number

of years and who might lose their jobs through no fault of their own.

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