HONG KONG CHINESE CIVIL SERVANTS' ASSOCIATION
The Right Honourable,
The Lord Shepherd, P.C.,
Minister of State,
Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs,
c/o Government House,
Upper Albert Road, Hong Kong
7th June, 1969.
5/2
Sir,
Staff Relations in the Hong Kong Civil Service
We understand that during Your Lordship's present visit to Hong Kong it is not possible for you to grant interviews to re- presentatives of Government Staff Associations. We fully appreciate the reasons for this, as we know how very great the pressure is on your valuable time throughout this visit. However, we venture to hope that you will find it possible to give some consideration on your return to London to the subject-matter of this letter and of the attached memorandum, which gives a summary of points discussed at our interview between Messrs. Daniel Jones, M.P. and representa- tives of this Association on 13th April, 1969. These points were all concerned with staff relations in the Hong Kong Civil Service. We requested Mr. Jones to seek an opportunity of raising these points with you personally, if possible, and hope that such an opportunity may arise as an outcome of your present visit to Hong Kong.
2. In June 1968 this Association, which is by far the largest and most representation of the three main Civil Service Staff Associations, entered into an agreement with the Hong Kong Govern- ment and the other two main staff associations, establishing a consultation body known as the Senior Civil Service Council for a trial period of one year. Although granted only equal representation with the other two much smaller associations, we entered into this agreement in a spirit of good will, with the aim of getting established some form of genuine consultation machinery which would prove of benefit in promoting good labour relations between Government and its employees. As Your Lordship will see from the attached memo- randum, however, we have found this agreement to be in practice very unfair and unsatisfactory.
3. One illustration of the unfair and unsatisfactory nature of Senior Civil Service Council consultations up to the present is the question of the implementation of the policy of equal pay which the Hong Kong Government adopted four years ago in accordance with the recommendations of the 1965 Salaries Commission. The implementation of this policy was delayed for four years pending the establishment of the present consultation machinery. Finally, when Government put its implementation proposals to the Senior Civil Service Council, we found ourselves on the Staff Side of the Council presented with a simple option of either (a) accepting (and thus making binding on the Service as a whole) a scheme of implementation which would debar the majority of women officers, among them the nurses and teachers, from the benefits of the equal pay reforms recommended by the 1965 Salaries Commission; or (b) rejecting the scheme and thus being held responsible by Government for preventing any measure of equal pay from being achieved. This, we consider, is not so much an option as are unjust ultimation, the Staff Side being asked to accept the scheme without being given any details whatever as to which grades and what members of women officers Government would intend to include in the scheme. We believe that Your Lordship will agree with us that this
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