Labour Affairs Bureau (DSAL) Director Wong Chi Hong said yesterday that the government now aims to launch a public consultation on the drafting of the city’s first-ever trade union bill in the fourth quarter of this year.
Wong made the remarks while speaking to reporters after a regular closed-door meeting of the Standing Council on Social Concerted Action at the Macau Business Support Centre (MBSC) in Nape.
The Standing Council on Social Concerted Action, a government-appointed consultative body tasked with advising the government on its labour policies, consists of five business sector representatives and five labour representatives, as well as a number of government officials.
Yesterday’s meeting, which was chaired by Secretary for Economy and Finance Lei Wai Nong, was this year’s first plenary meeting of the council, where government officials listened to opinions from business and labour representatives about a public consultation document on a trade union bill that the government completed drafting late last year.
The government announced in a statement in November that it had completed drafting a public consultation document on a trade union bill and had submitted the document to members of the Standing Council on Social Concerted Action for perusal. The statement underlined that the drafting of a trade union bill is a major labour policy measure, a process closely related to the interests of the city’s business and labour sectors.
November’s statement said that the government would first “thoroughly” listen to opinions on its proposal on trade union legislation from the business and labour representatives of the Standing Council on Social Concerted Action before launching a public consultation on the matter “in due course”.
According to November’s statement, the government’s proposal on trade union legislation covers a trade union registration system and a collective bargaining system. The statement also said that the government had drafted its proposal on trade union legislation after referencing the relevant regulations in a number of countries and regions while considering Macau’s current social situation.
The statement, which was released on November 4, said that the government proposes that the legal position of the city’s trade unions would be formally established through specific legislation, which would regulate the composition and functioning of trade unions and their rights and obligations.
Speaking to reporters after yesterday’s meeting, Wong said that both the business and labour representatives of the council said that they would need time to collect opinions from members of the two sectors’ various associations. Wong said the government would ensure that the two sectors would submit their respective written opinions to the government by the fourth quarter of this year, which would enable it to carry out a public consultation on the matter at that time, which was slated to last 45 days.
Wong, who is the council’s coordinator, noted that after the completion of the public consultation process, the government would then need to draft a report summarising the opinions gathered from residents during the public consultation period, only after which the government would be able to start drafting the trade union bill. Wong said that therefore it is difficult for the government to come up with a timetable for the time being as to when it would complete drafting the bill and submit to the legislature for debate and vote.
The Legislative Assembly (AL) rejected a trade union bill for the 12th time in November last year. A dozen trade union bills by various lawmakers have been submitted to the legislature since the founding of the Macau Special Administrative Region (MSAR) in December 1999. Macau is the only jurisdiction in China that still does not have a trade union law – unlike the Chinese mainland, Taiwan and Hong Kong.
Labour Affairs Bureau (DSAL) Director Wong Chi Hong (centre) speaks to reporters at the Macau Business Support Centre (MBSC) in Nape after yesterday’s plenary meeting of the government-appointed Standing Council on Social Concerted Action, as DSAL Deputy Director Chan Un Tong (left) and Acting Deputy Director Chan Chon U look on. Photo: MPDG
