TNAG-0785-FCO40-989-Study-of-labour-relations-in-Hong-Kong-by-Professor-H-A-Turn-1978 — Page 181

21.

official pointed out that, all demarcators could have been dismissed!

splay

In December 1976, the government circularised regulation 610 to all

departments. This stated that salary could be deducted or withheld if officers

were found unable to fulfil all or part of their normal duties. Action taken

under union instruction would nto be considered reasonable legal cause. This

move, which officials labelled as 'clarification' disturbed unions 'militant 1

and non-militant' alike. Although the Courts reasoning could still make it

difficult to invoke this regulation it doesn't preclude government action on

the basis of employees refusing to obey lawful, orders of the department head.

Union officials expressed the view that the government is trying to make

informal action progressively more difficult.

The ability of civil service unions to undertake action outside the

formal channels of joint, consultation is predicated by the legal and work

environment, government resistance, industrial experience and resources, the

support of their membership, public opinion and the degree of unionisation for

-that group.

Disciplined-bodies such as the police and fire services are

specifically prohibited from engaging in most types of organised dissent.

Many professional and higher paid groups are loath to adopt a conflict stancè

with the government especially an open confrontation.

Expatriates représent

the extreme of this. This attitude, also far from unique to the Hong Kong.

civil service, is based on professional and civic responsibility consideration,

a more-favoured-position with regard to formal channels and, in the case of

expatriates, privileged conditions of-service and the lack of public sympathy

such action could be expected to generate in the predominantly Chinese community.

These qualas are not shared by a growing number of lower professional, technical

and clerical grade civil servants who feel themselves, not without some

justification, to be disadvantaged by the present situation.

It is difficult to envisage the present formation of new unions, which

has more than matched growth in overall membership, continuing indefinitely.

is likely that, under government pressure, present modes of conflict will

provoke a crisis, become unsuitable or out of reach to such small bodies acting

It