GAMING | Labor leaders say police questioned them after protests

Gaming workers protest downtown on Monday, Aug. 25

Three Macau labor leaders said they were questioned and warned of possible charges by police after participating in gaming workers protests.
Macau Gaming Industry Frontline Workers (also known as Forefront of Macau Gaming – FMG) co-founder Cloee Chao and two other members said they were separately questioned last week on suspicion they broke through police barricades at an Aug. 25 demonstration, and all three said they denied the allegations. The union is planning more protests including over China’s week-long National Day public holiday.
“I feel intimidated,” said Chao, a 34-year-old single mother of two. “It’s a warning and a threat to me.”
Macau authorities have evidence that protesters breached the cordon, police spokesman Wong Chi-wang said by phone on Monday. More time is needed to respond to the union’s specific comments, Wong said. A representative of the city government referred inquiries to the police.
Chao and her union members are spearheading something that Macau’s USD45.2 billion gaming industry, which generates seven times more revenue than the Las Vegas Strip, rarely saw before: worker protests. They’ve held eight demonstrations this year, with the last one, on Sept. 13, drawing about 700 employees demanding better pay and working conditions from top Asian casino operator SJM Holdings Ltd.
Sands China Ltd., controlled by billionaire Sheldon Adelson, fell 3.9 percent to HKD44.20 at the close of trading in Hong Kong, its lowest level in more than a year. Wynn Macau Ltd. slumped 3.2 percent and Galaxy Entertainment Group Ltd. ended down 3.3 percent. The benchmark Hang Seng Index declined 0.9 percent.
The unionists have said workers from gambling mogul Stanley Ho’s SJM are considering taking industrial action during the annual holiday starting Oct. 1, when mainland tourists often travel to Macau as casinos are illegal at home.
A shortage of labor is “quite a serious issue” for Macau’s casino operators as they expand with a series of new resorts in the city’s Cotai district, Praveen Choudhary, an analyst at Morgan Stanley in Hong Kong, wrote in a note yesterday.
“Recent strikes and subsequent announcements related to higher bonuses are pushing staff costs growth of more than 10 percent per annum, which could mean severe margin pressure together with revenue growth slowdown,” he wrote.
Sands China’s revenue and operating margin almost tripled from 2008 level to USD8.9 billion and 26 percent last year. Lui Che-Woo’s Galaxy jumped by about 1,400 percent in the past five years in Hong Kong trading, even as its shares are down 27 percent this year. Galaxy, Sands China and Wynn Macau Ltd. have announced additional staff bonuses in recent months to counter worker dissatisfaction. After a demonstration by Galaxy’s workers last month, Lui said he would consider distributing stock to staff.
Macau’s casino operators didn’t immediately respond to telephone and e-mailed queries about the police action and the planned protests. While Chao and her colleagues have organized and taken part in demonstrations since May 2012, last week was the first time the trio said they faced police questioning. They also said police called two of their families.
A police officer told Chao, Lei Kuok Keong and Ung Kim Ip that authorities are looking into charging them with aggravated disobedience and will consider taking their cases to the prosecutor, the three unionists said. No charges have been filed so far, they said.
Union Chairman Ieong Man Teng and board member Loi Ngai Wai said they received calls from the police to turn up for questioning. Chao said that even after she submitted her contact details in an application for the Aug. 25 protest, a police officer called her father, who is almost 80 years old, last week to ask about her. “My father and mother were scared and were crying,” she said. “They thought something had happened to me.”
Li, vice chairman of the Frontline union, said a police officer also called his parents’ home to look for him. Chao, a supervisor on a gaming floor at Wynn Macau, led more than 1,400 workers from the city’s biggest casinos last month to demand higher salaries and better working conditions. Police officers and security guards put up barricades, with some of them holding hands as they blocked demonstrators from entering the casinos. Bloomberg