TNAG-0647-FCO40-795-Study-of-labour-relations-in-Hong-Kong-by-Professor-H-A-Turn-1977 — Page 90

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paid-up membership.

The full report of the Registrar for 1975 was not

available at the time of our enquiries, but from his detailed record we

found only 19 unions with more than 4000 claimed members and only 6 with

10,000 or more. In his 1974 report, 160 unions, more than half of those

registered, claimed a membership of 250 or less.

**

18. In type, moreover, unions remain generally restricted in their

jurisdictional coverage. A few of the larger unions, notably such

bigger associates of the FTU as the seamen's, motor transport, and

textile unions, are in principle of an 'industrial' type. But there are

many smaller associations confined to particular occupational or local

groups and minor trades within larger economic sectors. This fragmenta-

tion has clearly been encouraged in the past by the law relating to union

registration, but one doubts that to be the only factor. Despite a more

liberal attitude in this respect on the administration's part, there has

been only one successful combination of unions in a closer grouping

and that of 4 very small printers' societies with a combined membership

below 200. There is still despite the alleged mobility of much of the

Hong Kong labour force no union of a "general" type. By and large,

the biggest unions are associated with the FTU, and the smallest are

found in the "neutral group". Indeed, it is clear that much of the

recent growth in the number of unions has occurred in the public service,

where a more tolerant attitude towards union membership and activity has

apparently helped to promote a proliferation of small organisations.

Three-quarters of the 40 or so new employee organisations registered in

the four years to end-1975 were in the public service proper, and

several of the rest were in semi-public occupations such as teaching

and hospitals. The multiplication of civil service organisations appears

to be accelerating: for the year 1975/76 the annual Report on the Civil

Service recorded that their number rose from 66 to 86.

19. It has been said to us on several occasions that less than 5% of

the employed labour force of Hong Kong is covered by collective

agreements. I know of no systematic basis on which this figure could be

calculated if only because the term "collective agreement" is itself

open to wide interpretation. But if taken to mean that wages, pay

structures and conditions or terms of employment are negotiated in

detail between firms or employer organisations and trade union represen-

tatives, and embodied in signed agreements which are regularly revised,

I should think the figure, if anything, an exaggeration. It is true

/that

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