TNAG-0065-FCO40-101-Local-intelligence-reports-1968 — Page 123

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Government action against posters continued on 4th June when they were removed by police from buses throughout the Colony and from ferries of the Star Ferry Company, but on 6th June Star Ferry workers put up more posters. Following further police action to remove them, workers went on strike and by the late evening of 6th June Star Ferry services had ceased. On 7th June the Star Ferry Company suspended all strikers, but provided an opportunity for non-communist workers to return to work by offering to consider a plications for reinstatement.

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The management of the British owned Taikoo Dockyard & Engineering Company also removed posters from within the dockyard, and on 6th June to rkers there downed tools in protest against this action. Strikers surrounded and detained the General Manager and a

On 8th June, number of European staff members for several hours. Taikoo Docks announced that, because of the breakdown of discipline, the Docks were to be temporarily closed. However, the workers were kept on full pay, which ensured that non-communist workers vere not alionated, but it was Lade clear by both the Taikoo and Star Ferry companies that communist troublemakers would not be re-employed. The action of these two firms resulted in a return to work by the majority of their en loyees, and set a valuable example for other Managements during the weeks that followed,

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Government then took further steps in the poster battle. On 8th June olice took action to remove posters from inside the Governm nt kechanical workshops in Kowloon and outside the Kowloon depot of the Hong Kong and China Gas Company. At both the workshops and the depot, which are adjacent, workers barricaded the entrances, armed themselves with iron bars and other offensive weapons and threatened to cause damage to equipment. Police forced their way into both premises with the use of tear gas and, after resistance was overcome, arrested 549 workers, of whom 120 were later charged

ith various offences. All orkers arrested ere suspended from duty but re-employment was offered on a selective basis to those who were not charged. During this police action three workers lost their lives, two apparently whilst trying to escape and whose bodies were found later in the Gas Depot, and one who died in police custody soon after his arrest; all were made "martyrs" by the communist press in the days that followed.

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During the first ten days of the month token strikes and one day stoppages occurred at various concerns, including the H.K. Tele hone Company, Kowloon Docks, the Hong Kong Electric Company, the Dairy Farm and the Government Waterworks Department, and the poster battle continued. However, it soon became clear to the communists that Government was not to be intimidated into allowing Hong Kong to become a second Lacau - lastered with inflammatory posters and that greater emphasis would have to be placed on action on the labour front.

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On 9th June the Government Armed Forces and Hospital Chinese Workers' Union, the H.D.C..U., the Fostal Workers' Union, the Government Waterworks Chinese Employees' Union, Fublic Utility

orkers' Unions and the Dairy Farm, called a strike to start the next day. Apart from stoppages of work at the Hong Kong Gas Company, Willich was still recovering from the incidents of 8th June, and the Dairy Farm, this call met with little success in that only small groups of hardcore communists went on strike and they were promptly suspended from duty. In contrast to this the Star Ferry Company reinstated sufficient loyal staff to resume a limited service on 10th June, despite intimidation by communist workers.

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