Bizcuits | Labour protection: No value in values

Leanda Lee

Macau residents would not have been surprised by the Times’ exposé (Special Report March 8) of the conditions our most vulnerable workers are at times forced to accept. The Labour Affairs Bureau has been handling cases of security guards made to surrender acceptable contractual terms and conditions. It was reported that some had worked up to 24 hours continuously and others had not been adequately compensated for overtime or for working on what should have been days off.

These are the unskilled workers from less fortunate economies. With fewer opportunities at home, they seek jobs in one of the wealthiest nations on the planet – in 2017 Macau ranked 4th in per capita GDP (PPP) globally. Behind each in a job stands a line of others ready to take the position. The never-ending supply, low skill requirements, lax labour protection, and blind eyes being turned all go to creating a power imbalance in this sector of the labour market.  For some employers there is no value in values, if values undermine the bottom line. Economic rankings might define a first world nation but unfortunately it does not guarantee ethical standards or humanitarian values.

The report’s first message was the lack of adequate protection for non-resident workers. Long have we heard of the appalling conditions and treatment suffered by some domestic helpers. Regulating human behaviour behind private doors is certainly challenging, but one would expect the more visible conditions of security guards employed by large firms to be less at risk. The report confirms that the blame can be laid not so much at the feet of the exploitative employer, but with a system that readily allows such behaviour to go unchecked.

The institutions that could have facilitated equitable labour protection have continuously disregarded the plight of the disposable non-resident worker year after year. In their eyes the local resident has always been most deserving of attention; any suggestion that labour protections should extend to non-resident workers has risked being perceived as undermining the rights of the local worker and is a politically fraught position to take. Yet again, the structural discriminatory practices and values of our community rear their ugly heads.

Labour protections should cover workers in an employment relationship regardless of their visa status.

The idea that there is a voluntary-work loophole (“the law doesn’t have a limit on voluntary work”) whilst a worker is in a paid employment relationship is a nonsense. The use of waivers to relinquish rights under contract or under minimum labour standards is also a nonsense, and is clearly against the law (Labour Relations Law, Article 14, paragraph 2). Any institution that allows such a namby-pamby, wishy-washy system of pseudo-contractual obligations is abrogating its responsibility under International Labour Organization conventions, which explicitly apply to Macau.

Migrant groups have been calling for more protection. Rights to bargain collectively and to have minimum standards protected are required be in place to safeguard all workers (ILO convention No. 98), but non-residents remain powerless and they sorely need an advocate. It is not as if the law does not give non-resident workers “equal treatment to resident workers, in regards to rights, obligations and working conditions”, it does (Article 2 of Law No. 21/2009). One additional problem lies with an issue similar to that of the gender-pay gap: the different groups do different jobs. A sufficient-protection test would be whether a local resident would be prepared to do the same job under the same conditions as a non-resident worker. The fact that resident workers demand and are in an unquestioned privileged position is precisely the reason why non-resident workers warrant additional protection against exploitative employers and a weak system.

I would argue that under the Principle of Equality in the Macau Labour Law that non-resident workers are indeed one of the “social groups in need of special protection”.