37.
Page 185
Page 185 copofi18506283 A comparison between Hong Kong's labour standards and those of her Asian neighbours reveals a number of
Apart from the absence of any
serious deficiencies.
form of contributory social security, these are:-
(a) The absence of minimum wages for low-paid occupations;
(b)
The absence of limitations on the hours of work of males or of statutory provision for proper overtime rates;
(c) Poor provision for statutory holidays with pay (6 out of 17) as compared with, say, 11 in Singapore, 13 in Taiwan and 12 in Indonesia. There is no provision for paid vacation leave, which exists in all the countries mentioned here.
(d) Hong Kong provides 4 rest days a month to manual workers and not, as required by the International Labour Convention, one rest day per week.
38. Even Hong Kong's critics acknowledge the useful role played by the Government's Department of Labour in ameliorating conditions in the Colony in recent years; but they remain unconvinced that more cannot be done and suspect that resistance to change is often encountered in the Executive and Legislative Councils and among senior officials. There appears to be some justification for this view.
Institutional
39. Judged by the standards of most other colonies, and certainly by relation to Hong Kong's size and sophistication, the institutional framework appears seriously deficient in its failure to provide representative Government by the system of elections. Hong Kong's critics invariably attribute the Colony's deficiencies in other fields, and the corruption which has come to light only recently, to the absence of popularly elected Government and prima facie it would seem indisputable that that such a Government would be more delicately responsive to the popular will.
However
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