LABOUR: CONTINUED APPLICATION OF STANDARDS IN HONG KONG

10:43 AM Jun 17, 1997

LABOUR: CONTINUED APPLICATION OF STANDARDS IN HONG KONG
Geneva, 17 June (TWN) -- The International Labour Conference was advised Tuesday that the International Labour Standards prevailing in Hong Kong prior to 1 July 1997, will continue to apply after that date, when sovereignty over that territory reverts to China.

A statement at the ILC plenary session said that the ILO Director-General had received 46 notifications from the Government of China on the application or continued application to Hong Kong after 1 July 1997 of ILO Conventions.

These conventions had been made applicable in Hong Kong so far by UK as the colonial metropolitan power.

The treaty between China and the United Kingdom, governing the return of Hong Kong to Chinese jurisdiction on the expiry of Britain's lease over Hong Kong, provides for the continuance of Hong Kong's separate status as a customs territory and also for several other institutional and other arrangements under British colonial rule.

The Chinese notification to the ILO is under this treaty arrangement, though ILO officials could not say under provision of the ILO charter a member-country could become a party to a Convention for only part of its territory, as Hong Kong politically would be after 1 July.

Among the Conventions, to which China is not a party, but that would continue to apply in Hong Kong are some of the socalled core-conventions that are the subject of the labour standards debate: the convention against forced labour (No 29), the conventions on freedom of association and collective bargaining (Nos 87 and 98).

Neither China nor Hong Kong (as a UK colony) are parties to the Convention against discrimination (No 111). But China is a party to the Convention for equal remuneration for equal work. Hong Kong is not.