TNAG-0785-FCO40-989-Study-of-labour-relations-in-Hong-Kong-by-Professor-H-A-Turn-1978 — Page 147

13.

"service-wide" authority.

The staff associations comprising the staff

side account for less than 25% of total civil service union membership.

In fact, some 76 other unions are excluded from representation as the

situation now stands.

The problem of acute multi-unionism is acknowledged by both sides.

--

But no policy has been devised and implemented that would secure

representation at the central level for the multiplicity of departmental

and grade associations together with the Model Scale I employees.

On one hand, to foster the recognition of grade or departmental

associations on the SCSC would be to create a mass assembly rather than

a consultative or negotiating body. In addition, such a move would

undoubtedly encounter resistance from the associations already established

on it. On the other hand, to create a Junior Staff Council or a series

of committees designed to negotiate centrally with the grade or depart-

mental associations would perhaps entail an added though not perhaps

insuperable administrative burden. More importantly, a plurality of

central bargaining units may be thought to involve the official side in

a perpetual round of negotiations, with different grades or departments

of staff bent on furthering "leap frog" claims.

Aside from the debates over consultation versus negotiation and the

unrepresentative nature of SCSC, a third problematic feature of the

central machinery is that it supplies no adequate method for handling

individual or group grievances in a formal manner.

The constitution of SCSC states that one of the body's objectives

is:

"to provide machinery for dealing with grievances"(15).

·

(15) Hong Kong Government, Constitution of the Senior Civil Service

Council, Paragraph 7.