SECRET
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Page No. 6 of 9 pages
LABOUR AFFAIRS
19.
Disputes involving Civil Service unions have been suspended
pending the outcome of the Second Review of the Standing Commission and
the legal action taken against the Hong Kong Government in connection with
the suspension of 26 dispensers. The Civil Service General Union is pressing
for a more generous attitude towards civil servants who apply for time off
for trade union purposes.
20.
The Amalgamated Union of Seafarers' was granted observer status
at the Asian Seafarers' Conference, an event sponsored by the International
Transport Workers Federation (I.T.W.F.). The union's communist counterpart,
the Hong Kong Seamen's Union, was not invited to the Conference but
nevertheless expressed its readiness to co-operate in any proposed action
(the most important current issue being the action taken by the I.T.W.F.
against ships manned by Asian crews).
IMMIGRATION
From China
21.
The daily average of legal immigrants arriving without onward travel documents was 154, providing further confirmation that Chinese policy is to maintain numbers at about this level despite continuing
representations on our part.
22.
Illegal immigration showed an upward trend: 4537 arrests (a
daily average of 156) in February as against 3784 (a daily average of 122)
in January. Apart from a temporary slackening in effort over the Lunar
New Year holiday period, the Chinese security forces seemed to maintain a
generally high level of activity on the land frontier. However the probable
inexperience and lack of training of some 900 new recruits to the Border
Defence Regiment (BDR), who arrived in early January to replace troops
being demobilised, and likewise of the members of the specially formed
Shenzhen Municipality Militia unit may partly account for the relatively
high number of 2,226 land and bay-crossers arrested in February. The
Chinese security forces appear to be handling those captured on the land
border more roughly: 15 acts of brutality were observed in February as
compared with 6 in January.
SECRET
/ para 23.
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