TNAG-0091-FCO40-127-Social-welfare-working-conditions-in-Hong-Kong-1968 — Page 5

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ACONOMIC

September 19, 1968

LABOUR REFORMS:

Mr-Bailey

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Frienterte submit

When the Employment Bill had its second reading last weck, the Commissioner for Labour promised that the draft would be amended in Legislative Council to tidy up some of its provisions. Mr England, a specialist in industrial reictions, argues that the Bill needs some radical improvements to bring it into line with the realities of Hongkong's labour market. One measure that would greatly improve the worker's protection under the law is the creation of an Industrial Tribunal to decide on disputes be- tween management and employees.

Labour Left Out

By Joe England

HE second reading of the Employment Bill 1968 last week produced no surprises. The employers put in their special pleading; the voice of labour was not heard, and the Commissioner agreed to changes in the wording of the Bill to make its meaning clearer. But there will be no changes of substance. This is disturbing because the Bill, which has admirable intentions, has a number of defects. The Bill does two important things. It proposes that all manual workers in continuous employment will receive, if they are sacked, at least a week's notice or a week's pay in lieu of notice. And by stipulating that days after they wages

be paid within seven become due, and carefully spelling out what may be deducted from wages, the Bill brings a long-overdue measure of wage protection to the Colony. By contrast with the Employers and Servants' Ordinance, which it will replace, the Bill embraces, with few exceptions, all manual workers

not just those earning up to $700 a month

must

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and also

all non-manual workers whose wages do not exceed $1,500 a month. The law will apply in all sectors of the economy and to all employers no matter how large or small.

For these reforms alone, the Bill must be welcomed. How- ever, as a bonus, the Bill requires employers to keep wages records and to make them available to the Commissioner for Labour when requested. It obliges employers to give workers full particulars of how their wages are calculated, and it gives additional powers to the Governor to regulate profit-making employment agencies. This is clearly the most significant piece of labour legislation that has appeared so far this year, and it will only be matched in importance by a revised Workmen's Compensation Ordinance, when that appears. It is refreshing too that the nineteenth-century terminology of "master and servant" has disappeared completely from this new Bill.

Although it also deals with the operation of fee-charging employment agencies, the Bill's chief concerns are job-security and wage protection. It tightens up on job-security in two ways. First it blocks a loop-hole in the existing law which should never have occurred and which was winked at for far too long. (The Ordinance was first enacted in 1902.) Under this legislation, workers earning up to $700 a month are assumed, until the contrary is proved, to be entitled to a month's notice or wages in lieu of notice. This sounds pretty good. The loop-hole arose, however, because the Ordinance was expressly not made to apply to hirings "by the day, job, or journey". This was meant to ensure that casual workers did not become entitled to a month's notice. But in practice, employers have been hiring workers on a permanent basis. while paying them day or picce rates, and have used this method of wage payment to justify dismissing them at will. Large numbers of workers have been sacked without any notice at all in spite of a law which was meant to protect

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them.

The new Bill deals with this problem by saying that all those in "continuous employment" are entitled to a month's notice, irrespective of the way their wages are calculated. "Continuous employment" becomes the key phrase now, and this is defined as existing when an employee has worked for not less than six hours (not necessarily without a break) on at least three days in a week in each of the four previous weeks. This appears to block the loop-hole, and in so doing should remove the cause of many bitter disputes.

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Secondly, the Bill lays down that the minimum period of notice for a worker in continuous employment shall be one week. If at this stage the layman feels more than the usual bewilderment which afflicts anyone trying to understand the law and says, "But how can this be an improvement? thought the Bill was putting all these workers on a month's notice", then he is excused: the law moves in mysterious ways its wonders to perform. The point is that under the old Ordinance and under the current Bill a contract is presumed to be on a monthly basis unless there is an agreement to the contrary. At present, this means that when the labour market is favourable, an employer in Hongkong can recruit workers. which and stipulate the amount of notice they shall receive may be three weeks, three days, or even none at all. When this Bill becomes law, however, all contracts must offer at least a week's notice.

The influence of the Social Security Report published earlier this year can be clearly discerned in all this, and it is

The Employment Bill will drastically improve the legal protection for workers like these who have generally been employed on casual terms making them subject to dismissal without notice.

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