CONFIDENTIAL
lotment and ne Bates
Rede Unions
agreements negotiated under the provisions of the GATT long
term cotton textiles arrangements.
There are also quota
restrictions on exporta of cotton textiles to Britain.
Resistance to Hong Kong's developing exports of other producta
wares
is also growing. However wages have risen rapidly in recons
years and Hong Kong textile cxporters are now meeting stiff
competition from countries such as Korea and Taiwan where
wages are considerably lower.
LAHOUR CONDITIONS AND RELATIONS
28.
Of rather more than 1 million people at work in Hong
Xong, 500,000 are in the manufacturing industries.
Unemployment is low. The index of wage rates has more thwi
doubled bince 1959 (1958 =
=100; 1969 = 248) and as tho cost
of living index has risen much more slowly, real wages have
risen over the period (by an estimated 75%). The shortage
of skilled and comi-skilled labour plus competition among
employers - rather than trade union pressures- tend to keep Wages rising steadily. In general, wages and conditions of
work in Hong Kong are second only to those in Japan amongst
Asian countries.
29. With the exception of a small neutral and independent segment, workors' unions are organised into two political groups the Federation of Trade Unions (communist and Peking controlled) and the Trade Union Council (KMT dominated). The number of unions sympathetic to the TUC far exceeds thos adhering to the FTU, but both the declared and estimated pald up membership figures of the TUC are in fact substantially.
Only occasionally do these two bodies and their constituent uniona function ao offective industriel organion- tions and then nover in concert since co-operation between
lower.
ONEX
/ them
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.