TNAG-0647-FCO40-795-Study-of-labour-relations-in-Hong-Kong-by-Professor-H-A-Turn-1977 — Page 96

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28.

on personally. Many hope to move up to become

independent entrepreneurs themselves, or at least for

promotion to supervisory and higher posts. They are

not interested in collective associations which might

imply a sacrifice of individual to group interests.

There is in any case a Chinese dislike of

"confrontation" situations.

This builds up largely to an argument that collective organisation

and social protection are not necessary to the Hong Kong worker because

he or she operates effectively in a rational and competitive market,

understands that the employer is operating in the same way, and also

gains from the situation because of special cultural factors in it.

29. The second cluster of arguments runs rather as follows. Powerful

business interests are the major influence in Hong Kong, and have been

able, in the past at least, to effectively frustrate advanced social

expenditure or labour legislation, so that this has not appeared to

workers a hopeful road to progress. The absence of political democracy,

combined with the divisions in the trade union movement, has meant that

there is in any case no effective channel to formulate collective

aspirations and interests. The unions are not particularly effective

anyway, and outside the public service, union membership involves a

political identification which the worker might find embarrassing either

now or later. Labour organisation is not a road to power or prestige

for able individuals, and employers have discriminated against active

trade unionists. Workers with a refugee background, "between Big

Brother and the deep blue sea", are naturally insecure and do not wish

to become labelled as "troublemakers". Demand for labour has generally

been high in Hong Kong, but in individual firms and trades it is

sufficiently variable for employers to get rid of awkward people without

an open appearance of victimisation. The essence of this argument is

thus that the superficial acceptance by workers of the existing state of

affairs does not arise from their ability to exploit it to their own

satisfaction as individuals, or from an innate dislike of collective

action, but from the lack of an effective alternative course of action

for them.

30. At first sight, there is evidence for both varieties of argument.

In support of the first cluster of propositions, for instance, it is

clear that certain types of worker are highly mobile: some factories

/have