TNAG-0091-FCO40-127-Social-welfare-working-conditions-in-Hong-Kong-1968 — Page 55

0003230

G.F. 323

CONFIDENTIAL

Memorandum for Labour Advisory Board

plovment Bill

LAB 3/68

162/6/1

The experience of officers of the Labour Department, especially of those concerned with labour-ranagement relations, has suggested for some time that more precise and more comprehensive legislation is necessary to cope with increasingly difficult problems which arise in the field of employment. In particular, the Employers and Servants Ordinance, chapter 57, which deals briefly with three important subjects, contracts of service, payment of wages, and employment offices, is inadequate, defective, and confusing. These deficiencies unfortunately lead to unnecessary disputes between labour and management which could be substantially reduced in number although not perhaps entirely eliminated, if the rights and obligations of employees and employers were more clearly defined. Urgent action is desirable to clarify the position regarding contracts of service and, to a lesser degree, wages and employment agencies. Ideally, a comprehensive code of employment is required. but the attached Employment Bill, which would replace the Employers and Servants Ordinance, deals initially with these three subjects as a matter of priority. It is intended, at a later date, to add further parts dealing with other aspects of employment.

2.

The Employers and Servants Ordinance applies only to contracts of service where the cash remuneration does not exceed $700 a month. This upper ceiling is a feature of several related ordinances administered by the Labour Department. It was first introduced into such legislation in 1953 when the Workmen's Compensation Ordinance became law and was subsequently incorporated in to later ordinances. Wage rates have considerably increased over the past fifteen years. In the past ten years they have generally doubled. To give protection generally comparable to that afforded in 1953 and to restore protection to those who, in the course of tire, have become dis-enfranchised, a new upper ceiling of $1500 a month is proposed. Additionally, it is proposed to give protection to all persons employed in manual labour, irrespective of the amount of monthly wages received, in compliance with the provisions of the Convention concerning the Protection of ages, number 95, of the International Labour Organization. On the other hand, two groups of employees are specifically excluded from the provisions of the bill those who are members of an employer's family and who live with the employer and seamen serving under articles of agreement.

3.

The first major part of the bill deals with the subject of contracts of service. It seeks to remove considerable confusion over the interpretation of existing legislation by clarifying the status of contracts and by setting out the terms under which contracts may be terminated. The basic presumption, set out in section 5, is that all contracts are monthly contracts renewable monthly. This presumption is subject to precise exclusions. These are contracts where there is an express agreement to the contrary or where employment is not continuous. To overcome a presumption of a monthly

CONFIDENTIAL