TNAG-0087-FCO40-123-Conditions-of-employment-for-Hong-Kong-Chinese-working-in-th-1969 — Page 12

Contracts of Employment (Indigenous Workers)

Convention.

Here too

ん

The bias in favour of the worker

is again recognised, But the reason for this is

that, unlike Commonwealth citizens, alien workers

brought to this country (and both the Ordinance

and the contract apply only to them) are not

entitled to stay indefinitely and cannot be

allowed to become a charge on the State. In

this respect the Hong Kong law corresponds to the

Home Office requirement for the issue of work

permits to aliens that the employer bringing

them to this country must assume responsibility

for their repatriation on the termination or

expiry of their contracts.

The practical difficulty of making workers

observe the terms of their contracts is a real

one and, in his efforts to secure the

enforcement of contracts, Mr. Burn has approached

many public authorities, both here and in Hong

Kong. Inevitably the gist of their advice has

been that a contract of employment is a matter

between the parties concerned and that in the

circumstances he describes no public authority

has either the duty or the right to enforce

compliance with its provisions. If either

party commits a breach of contract, the remedy

amy lies in a civil action in the Courts.

I am sure that if Mr. Burn has consulted his

Solicitors' or Employers' Association, he will

have been given similar advice, and that some

of the difficulties that an employer may expect

/to encounter

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