Page 5 - Preservation for the Documentation of Chinese Christianity

We have evolved from a mere provider of labour The influx of Vietnamese refugees was exploited
education service to a prom otor of labour education by employers to create a psychological threat to
service. The Christian Industrial Committee en- any worker demanding a wage increase. A forum
gaged actively in providing training and support to was held to urge local workers to defend their rights
workers who were responsible to organize labour together and hand in hand with the Vietnamese
education programmes, labour law counselling and refugees. Labour law exhibitions were held in the
exhibitions in their own area. Sahmshuipo camps and Kai-tak caps. Lectures in
labour law were also provided to the refugees
Labour Education invloves both training and action, together with the handing out of labour law tracts.
its ultim ate goal being worker's power. Organizing We also provided training to equip the refugees to
will be the necessary means to achieve this ends. do labour dispute counselling themselves.

Workers’Rights The existing Workmen’ Compensation is very
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inadequate with a ceiling of $80,000 and $60,000
for perm anent total incapacity and fatal cases
abour dispute counselling remained one
L of our busiest tasks. respectively. Together with several labour organi-
zations we, made the proposal to the government
We handled more than 3,000 cases
involving dismissal, redundancy and statutory that the ceiling should be raised to $200,000 in
July.
holidays last year. Some of the disputes involved
more than 1,000 workers and the total sum involved Three slide presentations on labour law, working
amounted to more than four million collars. to conditions and on wages and inflation were pro-
duced and received enthusiastic response from
A large num ber of cases involving dismissal and workers.
wage reduction occurred during the last quarter
of 1979. This was abnormal as there used to be Two cards were added to our labour law tracts
fewer cases of dismissal at the end of the year. with a set consisting of seven cards at the mo-
Most of the above cases were caused by em ployer’ m e n t:- dismissal and redundancy, statutory ho-
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intention to crade paym ent of the annual bonus to lidays, workmens’compensation, working hours,
employees. Those cases of wage reduction reflected industrial safety, sick leave and m aternity leave.
the fact that workers in Hong Kong lack security
of wages. This was a very serious m atter expecially Industrial safety
in a time when the inflation rate rocketed.
1980. The main features of the proposals in the T
The report by the Government appointed Working he figures of occupational accidents
am ounted to 66,835 and 301 fatal cases
Group on M aternity Leave was released in February in last year, a 25% and 8% increase in
injured cases and fatal cases respectively
report was basically in line with our proposals as compared to 1978. Fatal accidents in construc-
made in October 1978. However, there were still tion sites increased by 20%. The most serious ones
many drawbacks in details and we released a state- were four fatal cases causing the death of ten
m ent on 8th March together with 20 organizations workers. They occurred at the construction sites
including the Hong Kong Council of Women and the of the very same property developer and his con­
Hong Kong Kowloon Electronics Industry Em- tractors.
ployees Trade Unions as part of our response to the
report. Besides assisting the dependants of the victims to
seek compensation, we organized a series of meet-
A seminar on wage increase was held in May in ings on this topic. We also pressed the Labour
which we urged workers in Hong Kong to demand a Departm ent and Governor to give top priority to
20% wage increase through collective bargaining. industrial safety and to punish employers who
The call was repeated during a mass-rally on May frequently violated safety regulations.
Day in which more than 1,000 participated. Last With the full cooperation of the H. K. Kowloon
year, workers in more than ten trades successfully Cement and Concrete Trade Workers Union, we
obtained wage increases. succeeded in organizing a consulation on industrial