Bizcuits | Singing the Blues

Leanda Lee

The social media response a couple of weeks ago to cases of child abuse and the subsequent death of an infant allegedly at the hands of a (probably undertrained and poorly supported) domestic worker, is another knee-jerk reaction to an isolated and extreme case which benefits few.
As reported in MDT (August 14), a Vietnamese domestic worker was accused of shaking a two-month old infant in the first 5 days of her mother’s return to work. Police investigations confirmed the events which have sparked vocal concerns from the community about how migrant workers are dealt with once subject to criminal procedures. Wong Kit Cheng called for increased rigor in migrant worker clearance checks, mandating the use of fingerprints and halting the entry of migrant workers on tourist visas. The fingerprinting paints migrants as criminals and the visa control will be arduous to enforce and unwelcoming of bona fide tourists: the comparison between an illegitimate worker and a day-tripping mass-market tourist or a visiting Filipino relative is fraught. If Macau’s vision is to be a World Centre of Tourism and Leisure we cannot afford to appear suspicious and unwelcoming of a diversity of people with heavy handed responses.
To save our children, our efforts could be put to better use. On our hideously dangerous streets (2,675 casualties from 7,617 traffic accidents for the six months to June), there are many more children seriously injured at the hands of their parents as their soft skulls hit front car windscreens in the misinformed and ignorant belief that “it’ll be OK” to carry them in parental arms over short distances, rather than secured in child-safety restraints. I raise this tangentially to place the ‘dangerous maids’ concerns into perspective. I fear it’s not really about the children, but about demonising migrant workers.
Some basic statistics indicate the Macau government has very successfully managed the jobs-for-locals policy. Foreigners are not taking away local jobs: at the end of 2005 we had 39,411 non-resident workers in a workforce of 258,000 (15%), we now have 180,523 foreigners in a workforce of 405,400 (45%). The workforce participation rate has increased from 64.7% to 73.9% of the population in those 10 years – that means, more jobs for locals. The absolute number of local people unemployed has bumped around the range from 6,438 (in the boom time around April 2013) to 12,665 (in the early part of 2009 after the GFC and the first lot of restrictions on Chinese visas into the territory). The lowest unemployment numbers actually saw the same local unemployment rate we have today.
Macau lives off the efforts of migrant workers. The sheer investment into Macau could not have been achieved, nor maintained if not for this increase in workforce. Depending upon the statistics cited, our national accounts in real terms have increased around 3.5 to 4 times over the 8 years to 2013 – to be tempered by the gaming downturn. The foreign workforce is far from being the sole contributor to Macau’s economic miracle, but without foreign human resources, this evolving World Centre of Tourism and Entertainment could not have progressed thus far.
Often migrant workers are worked more than they should be, in appalling circumstances; that is the nature of the power-play between the haves and have-nots in Macau. If there’s any regulation needed, it is to rebalance the power between employers and employees and ensure effective enforcement and implementation of those laws. Better selected, better trained, better treated, better able to contribute.
For fear of inciting the masses and bringing down the economy, I’ve not made the suggestion but something in me has wanted to see a general Blue Card strike – call it Beating the Blues – to bring home to all in this community how fundamentally important these men and women are to our economy and the smooth running of our daily lives, freeing us to socialise and spend time with our families and rest. Rather, a more positive approach is to call upon the government to lead in public recognition of these workers via an official day of celebration of their contributions to our society, our community, businesses, families and to our sanity.