CONFIDENTIAL
INWARD TELEGRAM
TO THE COMMONWEALTH OFFICE (The Secretary of State)
FROM HONG KONG (Sir D. Trench)
83
RATION
23
MAY
Cypher
D. 23 May 1967
06152
IMMEDIATE
R. 23
CONFIDENTIAL
No.668
Following for Hall from Galsworthy.
Labour Situation.
We have had long discussion with Governor and Hetherington (Commissioner of Labour).
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Background here may be briefly summarised as follows:
(a) When Labour Advisory Board met on 11 May to
consider proposed legislation to reduce hours of work for women and young persons they were completely split- employers v. workers representatives.
(b) Events since then have, however, made their
mark on employers, and some at least are likely to be in more receptive frame of mind.
(c)
Governor and Hetherington wish to seize this opportunity to push things forward as far as possible.
We must recognise that action on labour front is extremely unlikely to have any significant impact on present situation. This is because Communist-dominated unions are basically disinterested in genuine industrial issues, except in so far as they can exploit them for political ends. Indeed, their demand is not for more Government involvement in labour relations, but precisely the contrary, viz. that Government should stay out of all labour disputes and leave it to be settled by direct "struggle" between management and labour on cultural revolution lines. And less than 12% of total working force of about 1.5 million are declared members of trade unions (100,000 favouring the Communist F.T.U., 40,000 the right-wing T.U.C. and 30,000 neutrals). Paid up membership is smaller (9% of labour force), but there are of course other strong reasons for proceeding as in paragraph 2(c).
4. As regards hours of work for women and young persons, the best of the workers' representatives on the Labour Advisory Board suggested that the approach should be to introduce a 48 hour week, but to permit overtime up to 12 hours a week.
5. If acceptable to Ministers, a possible method would be for legislation to empower Commissioner of Labour (by regulation):
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CONFIDENTIAL
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