tres Extrad
24
New Ken Telegraph 2 fure 1920
J Pl. antral
HK factories 'waste'
say British unionists
Ho
1. #
"
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1
"When
we
the:
them/
Gibson's visi
laboury
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1
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Legislation
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It was expected hat, by legislation, the working week would be reduced to 18 hours maximum
London.
raised ONG KONG, old question of trading organisa
established source of tions with the Commissioners so much that is cheap and 'of Labour and his colleagues, competitive in the knitwear we were assured by
by 1972, with a 'that what they would very industry, staggered meni- bers of British Hosiery and much like to see is a strong Knitwear Workers' Union also a strong manufacturers' delegation, during their organisation to institute the recent tour of Far East collective bargaining proce countries, by the amount of dure," said the British team... labour being "wasted" the factories.
in'
JC
'trade union movement
fre
'Excuse
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and
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number of hours 'of vertime of 300 a year. But in indus- try that already hai a 48- f hour week, they would con- tinue to work 48 hours and no reduction would be appli- cable by law
During a meeting with the
Department · of Commerce
"But" we thought they ac- "We were told," they have, reported, "that there was a cepted too easily the excuse, great shortage of labour in that the difficulty of organis Hongkong. But when visited factorles, we were of gious and political problems; the unanimous opinion that a and they could not organise' great deal of labour was, the manufacturers since thei being wasted and there could Chinese, by nature are indi-' have been a quite easy at- vidualists,
we ing work people lay in rellyears would be to try to
I
·
or
tainable increase in produc- "These are excuses" which tion of 12.5 to 15 per cent by must have been given by
countries and of the labouri many proper use
many available."
governments in the distant They stressed. however, past that Hongkong, as a labour market, is in "a most peculiar position" since it is the only Colony or country having a completely free-money mar ket and advantages of Com monwealth Preference, plus being an under-developed country in respect of the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs.
}
Ann:
7
Beneficial
+
Because of these advan-¿ tages, coupled with low wages, it was able to gain entry into a number of mar- kets on very beneficial terms
sald
The delegation
the Hongkong trade union re- presentatives they met ap-l peared to feel the whole' philosophy of Hongkong wast one of making it as easy as. possible to employ labour at the lowest possible rates and conditions in order to export to the world.
+
And anything which might!! disrupt this trading or, the advantages accruing was dia couraged.te
LA NO MORE C
1
"We had a feeling there
somehow was hope that other at some, time in the future, without any worrying, on their behalf, this problem, would be overcome, and like a shining knight on a white charger out of the nemesis would arise a strong, free
trade union movement and a : strong manufacturers', or- ⚫ganisation
Į
"They seem to hate learnt little from the social history of this country (Brtain) or any other developed country in this respect,"
¿
The British part/ found the Commissioner of Labour introduced from time to time proposals governing factory legislation and there was а really comprehensive Fac-i tories Act, very similar to that in the United Kingdom. ' Unfortunately, due to there being so few factory inspec- tors, and the fact that there are such a' large number of small units of producion, the establishment of thee stan- dards was very dificult to maintain. R
RECEIVED IN R ̊CISVAY No.51
Tradi
and Industry, the British visitors learnt that the policy of the DC&I for he rext few
increase capital investment in the Colony, with particular reference to American' cap- ital.
1
143
But no preference' what- soever was given to country.
any
No ald was given in 'the form of cheap rents, cheap factories or income tax relief. But at the same time Hong- kong's position in the, free money market, and the reasonable abundance of labour, had great attractions to industrialists, throughout
the world.'
High rents
1
The delegation found the tax structure vantageous to the worker b. rents, parti- cularly high in the Colony- a t person earning $20,000 year would pay in rent something in the region of $800 per month.
3
about
This contrasted strangely with Hongkong's position as one of the cheapest places in the world to buy any com- modity whatsoever," said the union officials
#1
At the DC&I, the visitors raised the question of orderly marketing of textiles, knit- wear and clothing, but said they were told by the senior official that, in his opinion, there should be even more liberalisation of trade. Whic
¦
"When
we
asked what
was
a
would be his 'position should Taiwan and South Korca commence to rupture the present Hongkong markets, would he still have the same philosophy, he declined to answer, saying this bridge that would have to be crossed when opposition be- came apparent," they said.
it was quite obvious that while Hongkong was able to export vast quantities of tex- tiles and clothing to the de- veloped countries, there was no thought in Government of accepting any form of order- ly marketing. (
F
There did not seem to be the realisation of the position Hongkong could be in over the next few years if other much lower-cost countries attacked the markets Hong- kong now considered its own particular province
in
.
The British party visited a number
of factorics Hongkong, covering ä broad picture of the industry. Commenting on what they saw at an outerwear factory, from which more than 80 'per cent was exported to the United States, they said pro-
€
duction was only fáir and there seemed to be a large number of operatives doing no useful work.
Productivity, it was sug- gested, would be increased
1
by 15 to 20 per cent without instituting any change in the method of production, '''but purely by streamlining, the labour, employed,
Assurance
ex.
Yet the visiting team had been assured by manufac turers and Government agen cles that there was an treme shortage of labour.
The British union
repre sentatives felt that, if an op- proach were made to utilise operative labour more em- ciently, there could be а drastic reduction in the unit cost of garments.
•
In their general conclu- sions, the visitors said that, in the industrial field, they saw little or nothing to com- mend itself to British indus- try other than in one factory in particular. .{
But even in that one in- stance the tempo of produc- tion was considerably below that which would be accepta- ble in the UKdrmsiz bewar
TOM
dials back dopad
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