The CTU is one of the city’s two leading labour unions, representing more than 80 affiliates and counting about 140,000 members as of last month, although it is dwarfed in size by the pro-establishment Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions (FTU), which has about three times as many affiliates and members.

The confederation announced it expected to dissolve early next month amid concerns for “members’ personal safety”.

The CTU has 15 training centres and is an appointed service provider for the Employees Retraining Board (ERB), a statutory body.

About 1,000 people are currently enrolled in around 200 training courses, according to Marilyn Tang Yin-lee, executive director of the confederation’s training centre.

Tang said closing the training centres was “difficult and saddening” and apologised to all those affected, including about 140 tutors.

“The impact is significant. We are really sorry and we do hope that there will be suitable arrangements to minimise the problems caused to those enrolled in our courses,” Tang said. “With our training centres stopping operations, it will be a loss for all Hongkongers.”

The centres ceased recruiting new students last Friday and dozens of short-term courses are expected to be completed by the end of October, she added.

For those on a waiting list, the confederation was in talks with the Employees Retaining Board to find an alternative for them.

Secretary for Labour and Welfare Law Chi-kwong said on Saturday his bureau was hoping to speed up the completion of the training classes, while possibly seeking the help of other groups to take over courses that might extend beyond the body’s dissolution.

Influential Hong Kong trade unions’ group begins process of folding

“They have provided a lot of training classes for our ERB. Therefore, our priority is to ensure the attendees are not affected,” Law said.

The CTU has earned the respect of many residents over the decades by taking on the rich and powerful with labour movements such as a dock workers’ strike that lasted 40 days in 2013.

But by later diverting into political activism, the union lost its focus and fell into Beijing’s cross hairs, analysts have said.

While authorities have been warning opposition unions for months they could face deregistering, the pro-Beijing Wen Wei Po accused the CTU of pocketing money from the Solidarity Centre based in the United States via the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and accused it of “colluding with foreign forces”.

The NED is funded largely by the US Congress, while China has claimed the NGO is an offshoot of the Central Intelligence Agency, a claim the NED has denied.

CTU chairman Wong on Sunday refuted the claims, saying its collaboration with the Solidarity Centre had ended by July of last year and was entirely related to labour and collective bargaining rights, as well as training for union leaders, and “did not involve any political activities”.

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Chung Kim-wah, deputy chief executive officer of the Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute, said the CTU had been a courageous defender of workers’ interests against powerful employers.

For him, the group’s most memorable movement was the 40-day dock strike at the Kwai Tsing Container Terminals. A subsidiary of Hutchison Port Holdings Trust, owned by tycoon Li Ka-shing, had outsourced workforce management to hired contractors. Striking workers demanded better pay and conditions and following the longest industrial action in Hong Kong in years agreed to a 9.8 per cent pay rise.

“We can see that the CTU has been undaunted in fighting against rich bosses for workers’ interests,” he said. “In the end, the whole movement ended in a good way with the workers getting higher pay and better welfare such as longer lunchtime.”

Lau Siu-kai, vice-chairman of the semi-official Chinese Association of Hong Kong and Macau Studies think tank, said the dock strike had taken “an overly aggressive approach” in fighting for labour rights against tycoons such as Li.

“It has never narrowly focused on workers’ rights. It has hoped to push for social reforms through labour movements.”

“This has diverted from the group’s mission of fighting for labour rights and placed itself in an antagonistic position against Beijing,” he said.

The confederation espoused the principle of “solidarity, rice bowl, justice and democracy”. It called for the right to collective bargaining, protection against dismissal for involvement in trade union activities, as well as democracy through civic participation.

The CTU was also known for successfully achieving the statutory right for labour unions to collective bargain, just days before the handover from British to Chinese rule in 1997. But just three months later, the law was scrapped by the provisional legislature dominated by the pro-Beijing bloc.

Lawmaker Michael Luk Chung-hung, of the FTU, said labour rights could not be separated from politics but accused the CTU of acting against workers’ interests.

“The most obvious example is the citywide strikes organised by CTU in 2019 amid the social unrest,” he said.

Although the FTU did not see eye to eye with its rival, they did align their positions over the ultimately successful fight for a minimum wage in 2010, Luk said.

Even with its collapse, workers’ rights would still find protection, to an extent, in unions run by the pro-establishment camp, argued Chinese University political scientist Ivan Choy Chi-keung.

“But they may be less inclined to touch on certain issues or when the issues at stake pose a challenge to the government,” he said. “They are certainly less aggressive.”

Lee Chun-wing, lecturer of the division of social sciences, humanities and design at Hong Kong Community College, said he believed that the CTU’s downfall was its alleged ties with foreign unions.

Lee agreed with Choy that it would be difficult for the FTU to replace the confederations’ role as the former was less focused on domestic helpers’ rights and would steer clear of tactics such as strikes.

“Labour rights are important to the FTU. However, social stability is also important to them,” he said.