Employment | DSAL urged to safeguard job rights for local construction workers

A group of lawmakers delivered a letter of petition to the Labour Affairs Bureau (DSAL) yesterday morning, urging the authorities to safeguard and prioritize the employment entitlements of local construction workers — who have allegedly been forced out by blue cardholders.
As stated in the letter, some locals who engaged in construction painting and other professions in the industry have been dismissed lately by reason of, the relevant firm claimed, the completion of the construction project. However, the firm was found to have been employing foreign workers afterward.
In addition to the aforementioned incident, local construction workers had reported every now and then that they had encountered some unjust situations within their job-seeking process, ranging from promised employment going south at the last minute without just cause, to actual salary or work duties failing to be delivered as promised.
Recently, the number of local job-seekers pursuing a position within the construction industry in Macau has been surging. As of March 1, there were 465 locals who had signed themselves up with DSAL to apply for a job in the sector, according to the official data.
“It is displeasing that there are 26,984 foreign workers approved by the SAR government to engage in the construction industry, but local employees [are still] unemployed,” the petition letter said.
As a result, four Lawmakers, namely Ella Lei, Leong Sun Iok, Lam Lon Wai and Lei Chan U, together with representatives from the Macao Construction Industry General Union and the Macao Federation of Trade Unions, convened a meeting with DSAL on March 10 to address the hardship they say is being faced by local construction workers.
They urged DSAL authorities to conform to the principle of prioritizing employment for local citizens, especially during the pandemic, which is considered as a difficult time for the job market. The authorities should sign off on a quota of bluecard holders in a more prudent manner, and enhance the mechanism for withdrawing non-resident workers, they suggested.
In addition, the DSAL is advised to oversee local construction firms to check whether they have suspended local employees, whilst still retaining employment contracts with foreign workers.
Considering the government has put aside MOP18.5 billion for public construction projects in 2021, securing a job in the construction industry “should not be a problem,” Lei Chan U stated earlier in a written query.
Lei suggested that the government consider setting up a regulation and stipulating it in the future tender document for the public construction projects, which requires the selected company to hire a certain proportion of local workers in order to protect local employment rights.
DSAL also released a statement yesterday saying it has helped 79 local construction workers to secure jobs, from among 194 who had attended the job interviews at job-matching events. This translates to a successful matching rate of 40%.