TNAG-0087-FCO40-123-Conditions-of-employment-for-Hong-Kong-Chinese-working-in-th-1969 — Page 60

CODE 18-75

HONG KONG

Reference.....

CONTRACT FOR OVERSEAS EMPLOYMENT

natez

187/6/1

It has taken a long time to get to the bottom of all this and coffect the facts. Basically, the trouble is that Mr. Burn simply does not understand, but that no one has taken the trouble to explain properly to him. One cannot help feeling sorry for him, as no one seems to have tried to help him very much but he could have helped himself if he had gone about things more sensibly. It is very difficult to detailed sense out of his letters because they dart about and refer to things and correspondence about which we do not know. His letters do not really always give a clear enough picture and he is so angry that words fat from him. In general it is plain what is annoying him but a good deal of the detail is too full of gaps to be understandable. However, I think the main thing is to get at the principal grievances he has.

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2. In this story the dramatis personae seem to be Mr. Burn and three Government Departments our Ministry of Labour, the Hong Kong Department of Labour and (to a slight degree) the Commonwealth Office. I think the best way is to make some comments on each in turn.

3.

Mr. Burn

Thirty years of dealing with labour matters, inspection and enforcement of the labour laws of various countries, including those of Great Britain, has made me well aware how very few people know much about the law of their own country in general and the law which affects them in the conduct of their business in particular. Of course big companies do, but ordinary people and small firms are all too often extraordinarly ignorant.

4. Mr. Burn is no exception he gefs counsel's opinion (at considerable expense no doubt) about the law of Hong Kong, but he does not seem to have asked anyone about the law of Britain. If he belonged to any employers' or a similar association, or subscribed to a body like the Industrial Society or the Institute of Personnel Management, he could have had advice which would have helped him to understand many things about which he seems to be in a complete muddle. The money he spent on counsel's opinion would have been better spent in getting such advice. An ordinary good decent solicitor could have given him a little lesson on the difference between civil and criminal law, the law of "Master and Servant" as it is still called (i.e. the laws regulating the relations between employers and the people they employ), the law of contract, etc.

5. As I am not a legal adviser, or qualified to give legal advice, what I say about these matters should be checked by someone so qualified. These remarks may not be made in the right or best sequence, but I give below the points on which Mr. Burn seems to me to be ignorant and need advice and help.

H 6. People who work in England come under the law of England. As there is

different legislation in different parts of the U.K. and as I gather the people with whom Mr. Burn is concerned are all in London or near it, it may be best to confine any comments of a legal nature to England, but to put in a caveat that in Northern Ireland and Scotland the law is not always identical with English law though broadly the same, and that legal procedure is actually different in case Mr. Burn has people working in Aberdeen or Belfast for example.

B 7.

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Under the Contracts of Employment Act, 1963, workers (almost without exception) in England must have a contract of employment and this regardless of their nationality or origin. This law applies to Scotland but not to Northern Ireland.

58.

A contract of employment made outside Britain (e.g. in Hong Kong) and lawful in that country is perfectly acceptable in Britain, so long as it contains nothing which is repugnant to the law of Britain. Some people in this story seem to have been puzzled by the fact that a contract made under the law of Hong Kong should apply to people coming to Britain. This does not of course mean that the Hong Kong law is being applied to Britain it simply means that a properly made contract, made in Hong Kong and lawful there, is also lawful in Britain.

9. The

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