Gov’t presents bill to improve security officers’ overtime pay

Secretary for Security Wong Sio Chak said that the revision to the Law on Additional Remuneration for Security Forces, presented during yesterday’s Legislative Assembly plenary session, was needed to address overtime remuneration for the concerned officers.

The bill is at its first step of legislation. It comes after the Audit Commission found the working hours and overtime pay situation at the security forces was unclear and recommended the government fine-tune the current arrangements.

Secretary Wong emphasized yesterday the exceptional nature of the work of the forces and the hours its staff must work as one reason that the bill is necessary. He said these aspects are significantly different from that of other civil servants.

“Macau’s security forces operate year-round to satisfy the needs of public services,” the secretary explained. “The work time highly depends on needs and other factors. They even need to be on stand-by when off-duty.”

Pursuant to the Regulations Governing Public Administration Workers (Civil Servant Regulations), civil servants are entitled to additional remuneration if they work for 44 hours or above per week. However, this provision is not capable, in the secretary’s view, of coping with the special nature of the security forces’ work.

Sometimes, officers from the forces need to be on duty for even longer than 44 weekly hours. For example, during major holidays and festivals when a greater number of police officers are needed to remain on duty.

The legislation being discussed proposes that additional remuneration should be counted on the mean per month, instead of the mean per week as is the case for other civil servants. In other words, the overtime work compensation for security force officers will be based on the average work hours of a particular month.

Public security officers normally work for 36 hours per work plus an additional eight hours of auxiliary work, for example as a traffic warden. The bill proposes that officers are entitled to 100 points of additional remuneration if they are required to work 44 or more weekly hours. The current government salary points means this equates to MOP9,100.

However, under this legal framework, officers will not be entitled to overtime remuneration as stipulated in the Civil Servant Regulations. This is, according to Wong, to avoid double remuneration.

Yesterday’s discussion saw several lawmakers concerned about whether this new proposal is fairer on officers than the existing regime. Wong explained that it would be, as the average month hours were more representative of the actual working hours of an officer.

Moreover, he hinted that those arranging the scheduling would be mindful of the 44-hour threshold. For example, if an officer has worked for 43 hours in a week, his or her superintendent will try to assign additional work to the officer so that they meet the threshold.

Citing the legal frameworks in similar jurisdictions, Wong asserted that Macau’s was the fairest among mainland China, Portugal, the Hong Kong SAR and Taiwan.

The Head of the Public Security Police Force, Ng Kam Wa, introduced that apart from the additional remuneration scheme, police officers also enjoy other compensation, such as extra holidays, for their overtime work.

The bill was put into vote in general terms and passed with all 30 lawmakers in favor. It will then go to one of the parliament’s special committees for a detailed study before returning the plenary for a final vote. Committees have the right to request government officials’ presence to clarify matters relating to the bill.

Timing is everything

Following the discussion on the remunerations for security force officers, the Legislative Assembly carried on to discuss the amendment to the legal framework for training and internship governing judicial officials, as well as the amendment to the Foreign Labor Law. Both of them were put to vote by article yesterday.

According to the conventions of the Legislative Assembly, time is allotted for lawmakers to make comments on bills during the voting process. Yesterday, only Agnes Lam made a brief question concerning the first of the two additional bills. As such, the voting process took only approximately 10 minutes.

However, the President of the Legislative Assembly, Kou Hoi In, found that the assembly could not proceed because the officials responsible for the next agenda item, expecting further discussion, had not arrived yet. The president thus called a pause to the session and ordered a break.

The plenary resumed after a 10-minute break when officials including the Secretary for Economy and Finance, Lei Wai Nong, and director of the Labor Affairs Bureau, Wong Chi Hong, entered the parliament. AL