香港標準工時立法抗爭簡史

2010年7月15日，香港立法會通過最低工資法案，標誌着香港在完善其勞動保障制度上邁進一大步。在最低工資法案通過後，香港特區政府明言正就標準工時立法作準備。然而，正當各界為標準工時立法密鑼緊鼓之際，令人吃驚的是，現存有關香港標準工時立法及其鬥爭的文獻資料都十分零碎和欠缺有系統的整理。故此，本文有兩大目標：（一）嘗試借鑒馬克思考察英國工時立法的進路，利用現存歷史資料，重構香港開埠至今工時立法和鬥爭的歷史，從而解釋香港如何在不同歷史時空中錯失工時立法的機會，並帶出這段歷史對後工業香港社會的啟示；（二）比較香港與已發展（英國、法國和美國）及發展中國家（中國和越南）的現有工時立法，從中指出現時香港的工時立法是如何「既落後已發展國家，更落後發展中國家」。

On 15 July 2010, the Legislative Council of the HKSAR passed the Minimum Wage Bill, symbolizing Hong Kong's great leap forward in perfecting its labour protection system. After passing the bill, the HKSAR government stated that it had been preparing for legislating standard work hours. However, at this stage when various parties are preparing for work-hours legislation, it is surprising that the literature on the legislation and the history of its related struggles are either fragmented or unsystematic. Hence, this article has two objectives: (a) by following Marx's strategy of analyzing work-hours legislation in the United Kingdom, it aims to reconstruct briefly the history of work-hours legislation in Hong Kong since 1842, explaining how and why Hong Kong missed the chance of the legislation in the past and pointing out how the history can shed light on today's post-industrial society in Hong Kong; (b) by comparing Hong Kong with some developed countries (United Kingdom, France and the United States) and developing countries (China and Vietnam) regarding work-hours legislation, it argues that Hong Kong's work-hours legislation is lagging behind not only developed countries, but also developing countries.