News Release
23 January 2008

Contact: Edwina Antonio
Telephone number: 9488-9044/ 2537-1333

OFW's in UTS/Guardforce Macau Ltd. Hold Press Conference and Meeting with Macau Labor Affairs Bureau

Thirty five Overseas Filipino Workers (OFW's) held a press conference then a meeting with the Macau Labor Affairs Bureau (LAB) to press their demands for a speedy resolution of their labor problems with UTS/Guardforce Macau Ltd. This is the first time that the OFW's in Macau launched such activities.

The OFW's were assisted by Legislator Antonio Ng Kouk Cheong who helped organize said activities. The Mission for Migrant Workers and Asia Pacific Mission for Migrants also assisted the workers.

The 88 OFW's and 2 Burmese workers of UTS/Guardforce Ltd. submitted their complaints to the LAB in September 11, 2007, yet up to now no action has been taken by them. The Labor Affairs Bureau said it is still in the process of analyzing the case and that the process might take longer to conclude. Majority of the workers are contract workers and can legally stay in Macau up to May 31, 2008.

Other pertinent points that came out of the dialogue include the following:

1. Migrant workers are not covered by the Macau Labor Law. One example of this would be regarding the Long Service Payment. Local and permanent resident workers are compensated based on the length of their service while migrant workers are paid based on the last contract that they signed.

Most migrant workers in UTS/ Guardforce Ltd. have been in the company for more than ten years. Yet if they signed the new January – May 2008 contract being offered to them by the company, their long service pay would only be based on the 6 month period indicated. If they did not sign, this would be based on their 2007 contract.

2. The Labor Affairs Bureau said that they will determine if a new contract being offered by the company is fair. But they also admitted that it is legal for the company to revert the status of their workers from monthly to hourly basis and that the allowances such as housing can be paid in an hourly basis.

Since January of this year a number of the workers have been in floating status and do not have work everyday. Thus their monthly basic wage and even housing allowance which the company says is MOP500 a month is not guaranteed.

At the same time, if you are in hourly basis your overtime pay when you are made to work during your statutory days would only be equivalent to your regular pay. But if you are on monthly basis this would be 3 times your regular daily pay. Clearly all three mentioned above are not favorable to the migrant workers.

3. The LAB also admitted that they cannot determine at the moment how many workers in UTS/Guardforce Ltd. are on monthly and hourly basis. They also admitted that they cannot determine what should be the minimum pay for the migrant workers in said company.

Other than this the local and permanent workers were also offered a new contract by the company that would make all of them on hourly basis. It has been reported that the majority of the workers refuse to sign such a contract.

It is also becoming clear that Macau's Labor Affairs Bureau is not very helpful to the migrant and even local workers. It is thus up to the workers themselves to determine the proper action and direction of their struggle.

At the moment they are in the process of finalizing their association and know that in their experience in 1997, a few hours strike against the company resulted in a number of concessions given to them by the company.