CONFIDENTIAL
ployment and
Actes
Trade Unions
agreements negotiated under the provisions of the GATT long
term cotton textiles arrangements. There are also quota
restrictions on exports cr cotton textiles to Britain.
Resistance to hong Kong's developing exports of other products
is also growing. However wages have risen rapidly in recont
years and Hong Kong textile exporters are now meeting stif
competition from countries such as Korea and Taiwan where
wages are considerably lower.
LABOUR CONDITIONS AND RELATIONS
28. of rather more than 14 million people at work in Hong
Xong, 500,000 are in the manufacturing industries.
Unemployment is low.
The index of wage rates has more then
doubled since 1953 (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 shortaga of skilled and semi-skilled labour plus competition among
rather than trade union pressures tend to keep employers wages rising steadily. In general, wages and conditions of work in Hong Kong are second only to those in Japan amongst
Asian countries.
Ge
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 (KMT dominat:1). The number of unions sympathetic to the TUC far exceeds tho33 adhering to the FTU, but both the declared and estimated paźd up membership figures of the TUC are in fact substantially lower. Only occasionally do these two bodies and their constituent unicno function as effective industriel organisa- tions and then nover in concert since co-operation between
/ them
CONEDENTIAL
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