TNAG-0658-FCO40-807-Policy-of-Government-of-Hong-Kong-on-education-1977 — Page 32

. 5.

There is not established collective bargaining or negotiation machinery whatsoever between the government and the civil servants in Hong Kong. However, there are two existing channels of communication between the two parties. One is the Senior Civil Service Council (S.C.S.C.) which is composed of representatives from the Govern ment as the official side and also as the chairman of the council and representatives from the three so called "main" service-wide unions as the staff side. Their total no. of members claimed is only about 8,000, a sheer 7% of the total member of civil servants, which is about eleven hundred thousand. (110,000). However, they are they only three unions out of 75 the Government intends to recognize! Although the three unions represent different ranks of civil servants, any one union's representation must be agreed upon by the other two before it could be put forward to the official side. Such restriction has excellent effect on creating conflicts on staff side. That is why the S.C.S.C. has done little so far for the staff side. Moreover, as the three Unions cannot truly represent many, many grades in the civil service, many resolutions passed in the S.C.S.C. stimulate new and more serious labour disputes within the Government Departments. The S.C.S.C. is really a bad and rotten Consul- tative Machinery!

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The other existing channel of communication between the Government and civil servants is the Departmental cal

degrante Consultative Council for example, the Education Department Consultative Council (E.D.C.C.). Certain top Senior Officers will represent the official side, with the Director of Education as chairman, and the staff side is com- posed of all sorts of staff associations, clubs, even groups of civil servants belonging to the same grade. Property registered trade unions concerned are invited as well but the same restriction followed by the staff side in the S.C.S.C. also apply here. So, from the start, we can see clearly that such a Council is not a fair place for the staff side to exchange views with the official side, the status of Trade Unions is not respected. Their rights to negotiate on equal basis with the official side is not recognized. They are put in the council merely as one of the insignifi- cant groups of inferiors. Moreover, Departmental Consultative Council has no power to make decisions. It is therefore the Department Head to hear from the staff side, and then to refer, if he thinks fit, the views of th staff side to the Central Government for consideration. So, all the staff side can do, including the trade unions, is to wait, accept refusals, and obey. We can conclude that the situation of most of the Civil Servants Unions in Hong Kong, especially those representing the lower but the major ranks, is very bad, and trade Union movement within the civil servant is still in a very primitive stage.

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