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March 15, 2005

An Opportunity in Waiting

It appears that the Donald's attempt to re-assure the civil service has hit a snag:

Donald Tsang's first task was to re-assure the civil service of stability through his open letter, but some civil servant organizations are already disagreeing. Representatives plainly admit that they are not confident that Tsang's relations with civil servants will improve once in charge, and things may get even worse than in the Tung period. They feel that Tsang, familiar with the government apparatus, will simply continue the old ways, following the British colonial style of maintaining distance between himself and the civil service, contrary to expectations that the former civil servant will govern decisively with full backing from the civil service.

However, the obvious intent to re-assure and placate the civil service has not been accepted by some civil servant organizations. In fact, Tsang, who rose from the civil service, has always maintained a certain distance between himself and base-level civil servants, casting doubt on whether he can maintain unity and improve relations between government levels.

Leung Chiu-Ting, chairman of the Federation of Civil Servant Unions, says that Tsang knows the civil service apparatus too well, and has always kept little contact with the unions, and never had a record of fighting for civil servant benefits. He says the effects of a single letter urging unity within the ranks will be limited.

Leung says that Tsang cannot re-assure and improve his relations with the civil servants unless he maintains Tung Chee-Hwa's promise not to further cut their wages and lay off any more civil servants, on top of the 160,000 already downsized. He points out that Tung often would work outside the usual ways, and use ExCo member Cheng Yiu-Tong as a mediator. However, he expects that Tsang will only communicate through the official channels, with poorer results.

Another civil servant organization representative, Civil Servants General Union chairman Cheung Kuo-Biu, was even more blunt, stating that mere words mean nothing and that he had no assessment of Tsang. He says he will “watch his actions and listen to his words,” and would not dismiss the possibility that civil servants may be een more disappointed down the road.

I automatically take the words of union honchos with a grain of salt, but one should judge their concerns objectively. And the result is that they're really little to worry about: the last thing Donald Tsang needs is more rocking of the boat, and there's no point in him antagonizing one of his two major political assets (the other being the public). But flip the question around, and ask if the unions will take advantage of their influence over the civil servants to hijack Donald Tsang for more perks? My only response is to “watch their actions and listen to their words.”

﹝若欲讀以上精采引言，就請按以下的連結吧！我懶得去複印過來！﹞

看來煲呔曾的安撫公務員計畫遇到了絆腳石：

曾蔭權首日以署理特首身份上班，首要任務以為可憑一封「致全體公務員」的信穩定軍心，但卻遭遇部分公務員團體請「食檸檬」。團體代表坦言對曾領軍後改善與公務員關係的信心不大，甚至認為可能會比董建華時代更差，公務員團體認為熟悉體制的曾蔭權只會蕭規曹隨，依循港英年代的殖民地管治方式，與公務員保持階級距離，並非如外界以為出身自公務員的曾蔭權，會獲得全體公務員支持而強勢執政。

其實梁籌庭、張國標這些工會大阿頭說的話，我一向都懶的去管，但是每件事都應該盡量以客觀角度分析，而分析過的結論就是兩位都是杞人憂天：曾蔭權最想避免的事就是政局更加不穩定，而且他兩個最重要的政治籌碼就是公眾及公務員的支持，他是不會自砍雙腿的。反過來想，究竟公務員工會會否挾著曾蔭權需要公務員的支持來趁火打劫呢？對於這個可能，我只可以說一句話：「觀其行，聽其言」吧！

Posted by Kelvin at March 15, 2005 8:43 PM

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