TNAG-0296-FCO40-332-Legislation-for-registration-of-trade-unions-in-Hong-Kong-1972 — Page 21

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Articles 8 and 9

Article 10

These are matters for the United Kingdom Government.

Not applicable to Hong Kong.

Question III

Under the Trade Disputes Ordinance, the Governor is the authority for appointing any arbitration tribunal, and the Governor in Council is the authority for making rules regulating the procedures to be followed by any arbitration tribunal. The Registrar of Trade Unions is the authority responsible for the administration of the Trade Union Registration Ordinance. The settlement of labour disputes is the responsibility of the Commissioner of Labour.

Question IV

There have been no decisions given by courts of law or other courts regarding the application of the convention.

Question V

In Hong Kong, there has never been any difficulty in securing the rights of employers and employed to associate for all lawful purposes. Until recent years, the guild system, which was very similar to that existing in mediaeval Europe, obtained in a number of crafts and trades, and there are still traces of this system in trade unions which contain members who, from time to time, may change their status from being employees to that of small employers, and vice versa. This situation prevails in such trades as building construction, wholesale and retail trades and the manufacture of furniture and fixtures. The number of such unions is at present 16. The majority of registered unions are either of workers or of employers. It is the policy of the Hong Kong Government to encourage the development and growth of democratic trade unions whose primary object is the improvement of the industrial, social, and economic conditions of their members. This policy

has been greatly hampered by the permeation into local trade unionism of the rival ideologies of Chinese politics which have split the workers' unions into mutually opposed and irreconcilable camps. Such political cleavage also hinders attempts to set up recognised and permanent machinery for joint negotiation and industrial collaboration.

As regards the conciliation and mediation aspects of the convention, experience in the Labour Department has shown that such services rendered by the department have seldom been refused by the parties to a dispute.

Question VI

Copies of this report have been sent to the Employers' Federation of Hong Kong and the Labour Advisory Board which includes four workers' representatives, and, through the United Kingdom Ministry of Labour, to the British Employers' Confederation and the Trades Union Congress of Great Britain. No observations concerning the application of this convention in Hong Kong were received from any of these bodies during the period under review.

HONG KONG

October, 1966.

R.M. HETHERINGTON COMMISSIONER OF LABOUR