TNAG-0647-FCO40-795-Study-of-labour-relations-in-Hong-Kong-by-Professor-H-A-Turn-1977 — Page 114

33

71. A most important recent development in this connection has been

the establishment of the Labour Tribunals, the first of which was set

up in 1973 to provide a cheaper and less formal process for workers to

take action where their legal rights under employment contracts were

concerned than through the courts. In these Tribunals, procedure is

quite informal and no legal representation is permitted; employers and

workers speak for themselves, though a group may nominate one of its

members as spokesman. Officials of unions or employer organisations may

accompany the contestants as advisors; but I gather it is unusual for

this to occur.

The success of the Tribunal was such that two more have

since been established. But this development appears to have had no

effect on the numbers of such grievances settled by the Labour

Department itself, which have continued to increase:

Total cases settled

1971/2

1975

(major and minor grievances combined)

4161

5823

By:

Labour Tribunals

Labour Department

Legal Aid Department

Courts

0

1795

3297

3894

250

127

584

5

The main effect of the Tribunals has thus been to replace the courts as

channels for worker grievances, and to create an additional route for

their expression. But the great increase in the number of such

grievances handled by both them and the Labour Department itself is

significant of the failure of unions and direct management-employee

relationships in Hong Kong to provide such a channel. It is perhaps

also significant of the need for such grievance procedures that in the

last year of report, for instance (1975), Labour Tribunals found in

favour of the workers involved in 87% of cases they settled.

72. To repeat, just as in the case of such strikes as occur in

Hong Kong, the participation, much less leadership, of unions in these

various processes does not appear at all prominent.

VII

Some Conclusions

73. We have then (in summary) a situation in which there are good

social, economic and labour market reasons why an effective labour

/movement