The Macau government has sometimes been held hostage to several special interest groups and, apparently, still can’t live without them. Even worse, the government seems to have developed a Stockholm Syndrome in relation to its captors.
The long and winding story of what must be one of the silliest labour disputes in history is a good example.
In order to tackle unemployment rates of less than three percent, the government yields to the slightest pressure from specific groups, who exploit the situation to raise issues that seldom have anything to do with the legitimate rights of workers.
It’s true that several thousand unqualified workers have lost their jobs due to the relocation of traditional industries to the mainland.
It is equally true that they fear the loss of their life and family-sustaining salaries due to lack of protection.
It’s even more true that in the construction industry the unemployment rate is far more than three percent. The government itself estimates a massive 28 percent unemployment rate.
But it is also the case that many of today’s unemployed construction workers were not previously from this specific industry and they lack qualifications. In many cases, plenty of them – like many other Macau residents – believe they have the right to any job even without the necessary qualifications.
Instead of introducing effective social support schemes and self-help programs – perhaps with a tax on employers – the government allows itself to be fooled by certain people that prey on the ignorance and natural aspirations of residents who haven’t been fortunate enough to achieve professional qualifications.
As a result, these few people are able to impose their miserably populist political agendas.
This blind policy allows blackmail by them to continue, while undermining the creation of new companies and damaging investor trust.
What the government must not forget is that there are no jobs without investment and companies. And they should also never forget that the brilliant new formula of having one resident worker for each imported worker is only feasible for some jobs and at certain periods of time.
In other areas, Macau simply doesn’t have the workers, qualified or otherwise. Elsewhere, residents simply don’t want the jobs, and there are hundreds of examples which officials stubbornly refuse to recognise as being real.
It is the small and medium-sized enterprises that suffer most from this policy-void and lack of courageous political action.
Macau’s economic growth has created a dubious miracle: few local workers believe they are not suitable to be general-managers or CEOs, at least. They also want: to work close to home (as if Macau was a real metropolis); a work schedule that suits them perfectly; and the salary of a Wall Street financial guru. Anything less is unthinkable.
Even in the civil construction sector – an area that has created all sorts of difficulties for other industries because of its intrinsic role in labour issues – any unjustifiable restrictions are seen as impractical.
We understand the government’s temptation to transfer unemployed workers to construction sites – as if a former shoemaker was actually qualified to work in construction, unless he was only required to do simple and hard manual labour.
It is also understandable that construction workers would like real estate projects – residential buildings, hotels and casinos – to start one at a time, so that they can transfer from one to another and have a guaranteed job.
However the acceptance of these demands is tantamount to preventing the launch of projects when market conditions and investors require them, and sends out a dreadful message at a time when Macau needs to consolidate its growth.
But do not let yourself be fooled. The result of this  ‘conversation of the deaf’ is not those May 1st demonstrations by lots of people with legitimate expectations, and many others who had little reason to be there at all – a protest where water cannons were used by a police force who need to upgrade their skills and training, or else risk bringing Macau into the international news for all the wrong reasons.
Those demonstrations will always happen, sometimes for good reason, sometimes not so.
The government should not be tackling the demonstrations – which are part of the freedoms and rights of expression that Macau protects – but instead the fact that the overall need for qualified workers, in so many areas, is being overshadowed by  other specific problems. The government cannot confuse the trees with the forest. Otherwise, our growth will be hamstrung by a few blackmailers, opportunists and incompetents. And that will make no one happy.