LOCAL civil servants are to propose a new plan to freeze the Government's decision to allow expatriate staff to switch to local terms, they said yesterday.
They have also decided to drop their original plan to impose tough language and residency requirements on expatriate staff wanting to transfer.
The local civil servant unions had intended to draft legislation in the form of a private member's bill stipulating that expatriate civil servants must have lived in Hong Kong for 20 years, or be proficient in written and spoken Chinese.
But lack of support from legislators, concerned that such stringent requirements were incompatible with the Basic Law and the Bill of Rights, have forced the civil servants to back down.
Instead, 15 local staff associations decided last night to put forward a new plan aimed at preventing the Government implementing its new localisation policy.
Legislation will be drafted by the Local Crown Counsel Association with legislators again being asked to consider introducing it as a private member's bill.