Foreign and Commonwealth Office
London S.W.1
(8)
81
CONFIDENTIAL
SAVING DESPATCH
HKK.5/3-1970
From the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs
To the Governor, HONG KONG
25 August, 1970.
No. 318
Сек
Your Saving Despatch No. 544 of 8 May, 1970 reference CR.169/65 v.
Night Work for Women
1.
It is regretted that the further details of the Vauxhall Motors Agreement on the above subject, requested in your saving despatch No. 544, are not available. However, an outline of the legal position, under which the Agreement was made, has been provided by the Department of Employment and Productivity and may be of use to you:
"The standard restrictions on women's hours of work in the Factories Act, 1961 inter alia have the effect of prohibiting both double day shift work and night work. However, it is possible to escape these prohibitions.
Section 97 of the Act empowers the Secretary of State to authorise the working of a double day shift within certain limits. Such authority requires a secret ballot of workers except in the case of a new factory; it is usually of indefinite duration.
Under Section 117 of the Act the Secretary of State has a much wider power of dispensation for the purpose of maintaining or increasing efficiency. After such consultations as he may think appropriate" (this does not mean a secret ballot) he may make a special exemption order exempting workers at a particular establish- ment from any of the restrictions. Such orders are limited to a year but they may be and usually are renewed. It is by virtue of orders under Section 117 that women's night work comes to be permitted. Such an order was made for Vauxhall's, and it sets out the permitted times of work and intervals in full detail.
Although it was not always so, nowadays an
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