AL Plenary | Lawmakers urge the gov’t to solve ‘holidays shift proposal’ issue

During yesterday’s Legislative Assembly (AL) plenary session, lawmakers Ella Lei, Leong Sun Iok and Lei Chan U expressed their strong opposition to the government’s proposal to amend the labor law, allowing employers to perform “holiday shifts” between several mandatory public holidays, trading the benefit of such days for others.

The proposal, presented at the Standing Committee for the Coordination of Social Affairs (CPCS), gathered strong opposition from the employees sector, with the workers accusing the government of insisting upon a proposal that goes against public opinion.

The law amendment proposed to change three of the city’s compulsory public holidays into normal public holidays, and gathered a total of 64 percent of opinions against during the period of public consultation.

The proposal from the government recommends the selection of three of such holidays out of four: New Year’s Day, Ching Ming Festival, The Day following Chong Chao, and Chong Yeung Festival and is being portrayed by opponents as a clear attempt to diminish the rights of the workers.
At the AL yesterday, the two lawmakers urged the government to back down from such a proposal.

On the topic, Lei added that the fact the government decided to put such an idea on the negotiation table is, in fact, a way for the government “to delay or even fail to accomplish its promise of the Policy Address,” which includes not only to prioritize the law amendments that regulate weekly rest days, but also mandatory holidays and paternity leave.

During his turn, Leong said, “mandatory holidays have not increased in the last 30 years, and there has been no update of maternity leave in the last 10 years,” urging the government to take action and implement measures on which “society already showed to have reached consensus.”

Furthermore, Lei Chan U recalled, “in the beginning [when the labor law was firstly created], it had the purpose of balancing the rights due to the fact that workers were in a weaker position,” he noted. Lei added that at that time labor standards followed the minimum criteria of international conventions in the old Macau laws, for example, the rule “the working period can not exceed forty-eight hours per week” followed the criteria of the Working Hours (Industry) Convention of 1919 and the 56 days of maternity leave only includes two weeks more than the six weeks defined by the Maternity Protection Convention also of 1919.”

With this historical background Lei tried to show that labor laws in the region are old and not in line with reality, a fact that he contended to be applicable also to the “10 mandatory holidays [rule] that follow the regime of the labor relations of 1989.”

Concluding, “In my perspective, the law is perfected through its application and exists not to protect the superiors but to defend the common interests,” urging the government to put an end to the arguments between workers and employers by making a decision that gathers the consensus of society in general.

Right after the lawmakers’ voices were heard at the AL plenary, the Secretary for Economy and Finance, Lionel Leong, called a press conference at the AL lobby to respond to the allegations.

“Since last week [I’ve been] dialoguing with both parties [workers and employers] hoping that through the platform of the CPCS they can dialogue,” Leong said, adding that the government will convene a meeting at the CPCS “as soon as possible.” According to the same official, this meeting should be held on December 5 to “address such topics.”

On the lawmakers’ agenda

LAND LAW STUDY Lawmakers Zheng Anting and Pereira Coutinho addressed the plenary, enquiring about the government “study” that the Chief Executive (CE), Chui Sai On, revealed during the Policy Address for 2019. Chui has commissioned the Commission Against Corruption (CCAC) to undertake the study regarding the land plots already retrieved by the government and others still being processed. While Zheng said he agreed with previous reports from the CCAC noting the factor of responsibility of the developers on the non-usage of the land, he claimed that the anti-graft body had already produced reports that were “ignored” by the government. Coutinho expressed his disapproval of the choice of the CE in ordering the “anti-corruption police” to undertake such a study, claiming that the CCAC cannot or should not be the department to do it.

SMOKING IN CASINOS Lam Lon Wai noted that, despite the existing laws and complaints from employees, the lack of smoke control in casinos is a situation that still persists. Lam fears that the existing problem will tend to be aggravated when the new anti-smoking law, which enforces a ban on smoking in VIP lounges and common rooms, enters into force on January 1, 2019. In his opinion, since at least 19 casinos have not submitted any request to install smoking lounges, it means that some casinos will not possess rooms for smokers, a situation that will likely lead to violations of the anti-smoking law. In Lam’s opinion, if the existing law has been difficult to enforce, the new one might be equally difficult. He doubts that the government will reinforce its surveillance over the issue – particularly on the strict rules for the smoking lounges.

GP PUBLIC HOLIDAYS Lawmaker Song Pek Kei revisited an idea that has not been voiced for a while. The lawmaker proposed that the government establish public holidays for the days of the Macau Grand Prix racing event, in order to ease the inconvenience to the population during such days and to allow a larger participation from local residents in an event that has a long history and a large impact on Macau’s image abroad. In the opinion of Song, the establishment of the days of the Grand Prix as public holidays would facilitate the life of the population and improve the relationship of local residents with the event.

Budget for 2019 approved with 13.3 percent increase

The government’s budget for 2019 was passed during yesterday’s Legislative Assembly (AL) plenary session on its first reading with unanimity.

The session, which had been scheduled precisely with this matter in mind, triggered little interest from lawmakers, with the exception of requests for further clarification on certain topics.

As such, there was no real obstacle to the proposal by the Secretary for Economy and Finance, Lionel Leong, who also made little effort to advocate for the budget in the plenary.

Right at the start, the Secretary announced that the integrated budget for 2019 would present an increase of 13.3 percent when compared to the previous year, to reach a total of MOP122 billion.

At the same time, government expenses were forecast to grow 2.2 percent to MOP101.1 billion, an increase explained by Leong as to be mostly the result of the increase in the salary index of public servants from MOP85 to MOP88, accountable for a surge of about MOP885 million.

The government also expects the income from the gaming industry to grow by about MOP12 billion next year when compared to 2018.

The Secretary highlighted that, besides the increase of the amount announced by the Chief Executive for the wealth partaking scheme to MOP10,000 for permanent residents and MOP6,000 for non-permanent residents, four other measures will aim to ease the burden in concern to taxation.

In this sense, the government presented tax deductions for companies dedicated to “investigation and development”, with the purpose of encouraging the development of technology.

The government also said it is revising its taxation structure for rental properties to discourage the non-leasing of units.