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CONFIDENTIAL
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4.
Legislative Council approved on 18 December 1974 proposals to reduce the maximum permissible annual overtime for women and young persons (aged 16 and 17) from 300 hours to 250 hours a year from 1 January 1975 and from 250 hours to 200 hours from 1 January 1976. These reductions were opposed in Legislative Council by Dr S Y Chung (Lord Goronwy-Roberts will probably meet him) who quoted the British Government's consultative document of September 1973 entitled "Equal Opportunities for Men and Women". The Commissioner for Labour was able to draw his attentio
to a later consultative document issued in September 1974 - "Equality for Women" - which recommends that the protective measures for women contained in the UK Factories Act should be retained for the present. This accords with our own TUC's views.
Priorities for the Future
5. With the enactment of the new Labour Relations Bill the main framework of labour legislation in Hong Kong will be complete
but there remain a number of areas where over the next 2 or 3 years further improvements ought to be made.
a.
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6.
Social security. (See note below)
Provision for paid vacation leave.
These are:-
(At present there is
the legislation
no paid vacation leave in Hong Kong; provides only for 6 paid public holidays out of a total of 17 such holidays. 3 of the 6 paid public holidays are usually absorbed by the Chinese New Year. By comparison, Singapore workers are entitled to a week's paid vacation leave after a year in employment).
In addition there should be maintained a close oversight of movements in real wages during the present recession with a view to assessing the possible need for minimum wages legislation if wages should become too depressed. (Note: The operation of minimum wages legislation in Hong Kong would present serious administrative problems and would only be justified if there were to be a serious drop in real wages. There is a fuller analysis of the problem in paragraphs 5 to 14
of Mr Foggon's report on his visit to Hong Kong in February 1974.
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