TNAG-0647-FCO40-795-Study-of-labour-relations-in-Hong-Kong-by-Professor-H-A-Turn-1977 — Page 15

The University of Sydney

Department of Industrial Relations

w/53

AUSTRALLA

HONG KONG LA 393/9

2nd March, 1977

RECEIVED

- 7 RAR 127

O. L. A.

Mr. Harry Hurst,

Labour Advisor,

Foreign & Commonwealth Office,

Whitehall,

London, S.W.1.,

ENGLAND.

Dear Harry,

I'm not sure at this stage with whom I should deal over the Hong Kong Labour Relations report: presumably it now goes to the Overseas Labour Advisory Committee and becomes your affair? My experience of and contacts with the current Hong Kong desk have in any case left me with no great sense shall I say? - of certainty

there.

I enclose an account of my own expenditure on the study over and above amounts so far allowed: this excess totals over 2500, but I believe a payment of £100 for "sundries" is still due from the first round. I gather Dr. Fosh has sent you her ac-

counts for the second survey, on which she met the excess expenditure, which show over £900 beyond the allowances to her and the allocation for the survey itself. In this connection, however, you should note that we promised the hundred (or there- abouta) co-operating firms that we would send them each a copy of the second survey's summary results: this still remains to be done (and will be a small additional cost).

I should like to emphasise that most of our expenditure over the "ceiling" arose, as I forecast in my letters of 25th October and 15th December to Stewart, from the acceleration virtually imposed by the F.C.O. of the dates of Dr. Fosh' second survey from those originally planned, and the F.C.O.'s insistence on the production of a more conclusive report than was originally envisaged by 31st December.

I note again, for instance, that as against the $HK8000 originally estimated for the second survey (and the $HK7473, through a positively Middle-Eastern manipu- lation of the exchange rate, actually paid for it and then in arrears), Dr. Fosh's expenditure on it will probably come, even with the circulation to firms referred to above, very close to the revised estimate of $HK10,050 which she gave for the survey on an accelerated basis in September. The $HK8000 nominally allocated (minus the fiddle above, in practice) was, as I warned Stewart, clearly based on inadequate information as to local resources; and I emphasise again that once you have started on such an exercise you cannot cut it off at a particular point of expenditure without destroying the whole survey's validity.

You have, I may say, still got the report very cheaply. Much of the overheads have been covered by three universities, especially HKU, whose Asian Studies Centre provided extraordinarily generous facilities in return for a most nominal contribution; the cost of computing on the surveys (which would be considerable) has been largely borne by Bath University; and our own work has been supplemented by that of two Australian Commonwealth Scholars supported by Sydney (or by private contribution!). For some comparison with the second survey's cost of some $HK10,000, I know that a very much simpler survey on the hours and holidayscontroversy carried out recently for the FHKI cost $HK15,500 and that was done by the HK Productivity Institute at a subsidised rate.

In the upshot, I gather Dr. Fosh has been paid, after tax deduction, about £ 600 in honoraria; while I have just been notified of payment to my UK account bringing the total (after tax and NI deduction again) to me to some £2370. In effect, we have both so far made a loss, therefore. Two immediate points arise:-

a) Dr. Fosh was originally started on half-pay as an "extra" for the first round, in

August, but took over much of the work originally designated for the defaulting Handy, plus her pilot survey. The surveys were, I think, extremely well managed.

Continued .../2

Incidentally, she should now be naked just what should be sent, and to whom, I assume local distribution can be arranged.

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