TNAG-0585-FCO40-718-Employment-of-children-in-Hong-Kong-1976 — Page 285

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Picketing

23. Picketing in industrial disputes is a perennial source of difficulty in most countries and recent experiences in Hong Kong have not been happy. The existing provisions of the law (S.33 of CAP 64) which follows United Kingdom law (S.2 of the Trade Disputes Act, 1906) are difficult enough in the United Kingdom for the ordinary workman or his leaders to understand, and the police have their own problems of interpretation, and justifiable inhibitions about intervening in industrial disputes. Clear-cut rules about picketing would be an advantage to everyone, and while the Bermuda/ Bahamas rules may not in all respects be apt, provision in the Hong Kong law of the power to make rules and the incorporation in these rules of restrictions on numbers and on actions interfering with exit and entrance to places of employment would seem amply justified. The existing right to picket at a place where a person resides should also be looked at critically.

Legislative Programme

24. The Department of Labour programme of legislation is reasonably comprehensive, but it has now been recognised by the Hong Kong Government that it must be speeded up; hence the request for a specialist officer with experience of drawing up labour legislation.

I

It will, however, be important to ensure that at the same time labour legislation is given an adequate priority in the Government drafting of legislation priority list. The present arrangement whereby the Commissioner of Labour has no direct access to the Committee which draws up this priority list seems a serious weakness if new labour legislation is to be given the urgency which has been publicly announced. A suitable directive to the Chairman of the Committee would seem essential.

25.

The immediate priorities are as follows:

(a)

Factories and Industrial Undertakings (Special) Regulations (to give effect to reduction of hours of work of women and young persons and increases in overtime).

/ (b)

1.

A suitably qualified experienced officer has been recruited and should take up post in December 1967.

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