writing or in wages in lieu of such notice. If the contract is a continuous one then by law, the period of notice is either one month or such period as the parties may have agreed between themselves, but this must not be less than seven days.
Wage rates are normally fixed by agreements between employers and workers and are usually calculated on daily or monthly basis or on piece rates. No statistics are available to show the proportion of workers on time rates or piece rates, and as said earlier, the majority are paid by piece rate system.
We have included in the Appendices H and I details of wages in the garment and shirt industry and also in the manufacture of knitted piece goods. Both these tables are for March 1969.
Cost of Living
It is very difficult to assess and draw comparison in western eyes for a cost of living figure in Hong Kong since the food that is used is of a completely different variety to that to which we are accustomed and if one tries to assess the cost of meals in restaurants as against restaurants in this country, it may not be a reasonable criteria as the restaurants one visited in Hong Kong tended to be specifically for the European and the holiday trade and, therefore, prices would be inflated as against a normal commercial restaurant price list.
Accepting all the difficulties it would be a fair assumption that the price of food in Hong Kong is much lower than the price of food in the United Kingdom but the costs of rents are considerably higher than those in this country for similar accommodation. When one considers other goods such as clothing, consumer goods-for example, Television sets, wireless sets, watches, cameras, etc., these are much cheaper in Hong Kong-in fact it is suggested that Hong Kong may be the cheapest market in the world for consumer goods. Taking all this into consideration, a person earning the same wage in Hong Kong as a person in the United Kingdom, one would anticipate that living in Hong Kong would have some advantage, enabling that person to have a higher standard of living due to the incidence of cheap consumer goods, cheap labour for household assistance and cheap transport.
Conclusions
It was the unanimous opinion of the delegation that much remains to be done to improve the industrial climate in Hong Kong and in general terms, to improve the feeling of good faith between employer and employee. As a first step to making any conscious change in the present industrial atmosphere in the colony, it is imperative that the growth of free trade unionism should be encouraged and efforts made by all concerned to ensure that within the fore- seeable future there is a strengthening of the Employers organisations and the Trade Unions, thus creating the opportunity for collective bargaining and free negotiations to take place.
It is in this sphere of encouraging Trade Unionism that the colonial government has an important role to play and should be willing to go out and make the position known that they lend encouragement to the organisation of the workpeople into Trade Unions and thus form a strong Trade Union movement in the colony.
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