TNAG-0650-FCO40-798-Study-of-labour-relations-in-Hong-Kong-by-Professor-H.-A.-Tu-1977 — Page 101

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do the workers of other industrial economies.

Identification

is rather with the family group. At the same time, the

family (which often includes several earners) provides the

individual worker with support in hard times which makes

other forms of collective association or social security

unnecessary. And there is a further "fall-back" in the

self-employment sector (street-hawking and so on) which is

still important in Hong Kong, and which unlike the

"informal sector" in developing economies generally

does

not provide substantially lower earnings than those in less-

skilled wage-employment.

vi) Finally, workers do not think of advancement in collective

terms because they are in general ambitious as individuals,

and intend rather to get 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.

is in any case a Chinese dislike of "confrontation"

situations.

There

28.

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, understang

that the employer is operating in the same way, and also gains from the

situation because of special cultural factors in it.

29.

Powerful

The second cluster of arguments runs rather as follows.

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

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