SECRET
agreements negotiated under the provisions of the GATT long
term cotton textiles arranges.ents.
There are also quota
Employment and 1973 Rates
Trade Unions
restrictions on exports of cotton textiles to Britain.
Resistance to liong Kong's developing exports of other products
is also growing. However wages have risen rapidly in recent
years and Hong Kong textile exporters are now meeting stiff
competition from countries such as Korea and Taiwan where
wages are considerably lower.
LABOUR CONDITIONS AND RELATIONS
28. Of rather more than 11⁄2 million people at work in Hong
kong, 500,000 are in the manufacturing industries.
Unemployment is low. The index of wage rates has more than
doubled since 1959 (1958 = 100; 1969 = 248) and as the cost
of living index has risen much more slowly, real wages have
risen over the period (by an estimated 75%). The shortage
of skilled and semi-skilled labour plus competition among
employers rather than trade union pressures - tend to keep
wages rising steadily. In general, wages and conditions of
work in Hong Kong are second only to those in Japan amongst
Asian countries.
29.
With the exception of a small neutral and independent
segment, workers' unions are organised into two political
groups the Federation of Trade Unions (communist and
Peking controlled) and the Trade Union Council (KAT dominated).
The number of unions sympathetic to the TUC far exceeds those
adhering to the FTU, but both the declared and estimated paid
up membership figures of the TUC are in fact substantially
lower. Only occasionally do these two bodies and their
constituent unions function as effective industriel organisa-
tions and then never in concert since co-operation between
/ them
SECRET
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.