Gov’t proposes new timeframe for citywide minimum wage

The MSAR Government plans to implement a citywide minimum wage policy within three years following the coming into effect of Macau’s very first minimum wage law to be applied to cleaning and security workers only. The timeframe remains uncertain as deliberation of this law is still underway.
“We’ve clearly expressed the MSAR Administration’s direction that within three years following the implementation of the minimum wage for cleaning and security workers, who are employed by property management companies, we’ll see a citywide minimum wage policy in practice,” said the Secretary for Economy and Finance Lionel Leong Vai Tac yesterday following a closed-door meeting with the Standing Committee for the Co-ordination of Social Affairs. Mr. Leong noted that the direction has also been agreed upon by both the employer and employee parties on the committee.
“We will study whether we should implement the minimum wage for all the other sectors gradually, or all at one time – this will be the legal technicalities that we’ll see to,” the Secretary added.
The city’s first-ever minimum wage law, restricted to cleaning and security workers, went through the first reading of the Legislative Assembly in July last year but it has already missed former Secretary for Economy and Finance Francis Tam Pak Yuen’s expectation that the legislative work on the law could be finished in 2014.
The law, which proposed an hourly rate of MOP30 or a monthly MOP6,240 for cleaning and security workers, is still being deliberated by the third permanent committee of the Legislative Assembly.
“Now we’ll just want to see the Assembly finish discussing the law soon for these two types of worker,” said Mr. Leong Sun Iok, a member representing the labour side in the Standing Committee for the Co-ordination of Social Affairs, “… Increasing property management expenses are not excuses to stall the discussion on the minimum wage issue as it is the basic protection for grassroots workers here.”
S.L.