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Trade Disputes and Trade Unions. Act 1927 which was repealed in 1946 as
too repressive.
But first let me consider. our law without these additions, i.e., what
it would be if it were exactly the same as English law. Limitations common to English and Hong Kong law
The basic right granted by section 46 is "to attend at or near a
house or place where a person resides or works or carries on business or
happens to be, if they so attend merely for the purpose of peacefully
obtaining or communicating information or of peacefully persuading any
person to work or to abstain from working".
The first point about this section is that it permits peaceful
picketing by any persons acting either on their own behalf or on behalf of
a registered trade union or individual firm. It is not confined to the
strikers themselves. But the picketing must be "in contemplation or
furtherance of a trade dispute", otherwise it is outside the protection of
the section.
Picketing outside the protection of the section is unlawful: it
constitutes the crimes of intimidation and "watching and besetting" and
also generally constitutes a nuisance (and sometimes a trespass to the
highway) which makes the pickets liable to an action for damages.
unlawful.
:
Picketing becomes unlawful if either its object or the means used is
Thus, for example, if the object is to induce the breach of
contracts of sale or carriage of goods (eg, by turning back deliveries at
the factory gates and persuading others not to fulfil their contracts with
the employer) then the picketing is unlawful. By the same token "consumer-
picketing" is unlawful, e.g., parading outside a restaurant with placards
aimed at dissuading customers from patronizing the premises. The object
of the picketing must be confined to "obtaining or communicating information" or
"persuading any person to work or abstain from working" (i.e., inducing
them to break their contract of employment, not other kinds of contract).
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