Mr. Ki was rather indifferent to the proposal for a Shops Act. He shrugged and said, "Of course I want more holidays and shorter working hours, but more important still, I want to keep my rice bowl. It would be nicer for me to be given more pay, in which case I would not care if I had to work even longer hours. I have no place to go after work anyway."
(3) Mr. DIM Sum
Mr. Dim works as a waiter in a Chinese restaurant. He works 13 hours a day on a broken shift system (7.30 a.m. to 1.30 p.m. and then 5.00 p.m. to midnight). His basic wage is $300 per lunar month, but he gets a share of tips amounting to about $40 a month. He gets 4 free meals a day and sleeps in the restaurant at night. He gets one day off every month, and if he wants to apply for an extra day's leave, he must find a substitute to work for him. He must pay the substitute out of his own pocket, and at the same time, have one day's pay deducted from his monthly salary. Mr. Dim thought that he should be given more than one rest day per month (substitutes to be secured and paid by the employer). He could not see how it would be possible to reduce the working hours without the employer taking in more permanent staff. From his angle, reduced working hours (and an increased number of waiters) would mean a smaller share of the tips. He did not want to work in a factory (despite a report that there were over 10,000 factory vacancies at the moment) because factory process work was very dull and physically exhausting.
Employers' Views
A typical reply from shop owners to the question of a Shops Act was that they would not mind having shorter working hours, more holidays, etc., so long as his business would not be adversely affected. Some of them pointed out that hawkers were already giving them very stiff competition, and unless hawkers selling the same commodities were forbidden to hawk after a certain hour, they would be very reluctant to close early. "The Government must also look after our interests as well as the fokis," one said, "My wife and I work in the shop for the same number of hours," he added.
Most employers were of the opinion that they were not giving their fokis a raw deal. "After all, most of the fokis have been recommended to us by our friends and relatives. We know they are good workers and we do not want to lose them." They were rather dubious about the fixing of minimum wages for their employees, indicating that if minimum wages was forced upon them, they might have to cut down the number of fokis (which in most cases would not be practicable), charge for their employee's food and lodging, or even close down.
Comments by Other People
or
People not connected with shops generally support the idea of some form of shop legislation. They have, however, no strong feelings about it,
One point raised was that a strong union might be more effective in protecting the fokis from unscrupulous exploitation than legislation which would be very hard to enforce, and which would open up another channel for corruption. The barbers, for example, enjoy comparatively good working conditions through the efforts of their union.
/Conclusion
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