TNAG-0785-FCO40-989-Study-of-labour-relations-in-Hong-Kong-by-Professor-H-A-Turn-1978 — Page 149

15.

representation at this level, but often share membership of Consultat

ive Councils with non-association members elected or appointed by

particular grades or occupational groups.

The constitutions of Departmental Consultative Councils exclude

deliveration on matters deemed to be the preserve of the SCSc. As the

latest constitutional model states:-

"The Council shall not discuss the general salary level of individual·

grades or of the public service as a whole, these matters being within

the province of the SCSC" (16).

However, although pay policy is not a permitted subject of discussion

in DCCS, pay structure is. Again, according to the latest model 'con-

stitution, Council may:

"Discuss the structure of individual grade salary scales, the relationship

between those scales within the department and the relationship between

those scales and the scales of similar grades in other departments" (17).

Despite the constitutional propriety of these discussions on pay structure!:

which in practice appear to amount to a kind of preliminary job eval-

uation exercise, (involving mainly the completion of job descriptions)

DCC's are disparaged by the main associations as ineffective organs of

salary and wage determination. The powers of the DCC Chairmen are

restricted to-making a recommendation for departmental or grade pay re-

structuring to the CSB. However, the CSB cannot act on such a

recommendation except in what it might define as a 'special case', since

to make an automatic upward grade revision would quite obviously

jeopardise the assumed rationality of the service-wide pay structure,.

(16)--Hong Kong Government, Registrar General's Department, Consultative

Council Constitution, Paragraph 2.

(17) ́ ́ibid, Paragraph 2(1).