Kapok: Toothless labor organizations

I was recently reminded that in the years leading to the handover, the Portuguese administration had expressed the wish, almost on an annual basis, to move forward with the long-delayed passing of a trade union law in Macao. However, at the time, with the constraints of the transfer of sovereignty becoming more pressing, all projects or proposals of law had to be submitted “informally” for prior approval to the Xinhua News Agency, the one institution that served as Beijing’s unofficial representation prior to the establishment of the Liaison Office in 2000.

Few people remember that the Xinhua News Agency had itself replaced the Nam Kwong in 1987, and the latter is still a force to reckon with in present-day Macao, both economically and politically, as it employs, for example, the likes of legislator Mak Soi Kun, who, in the past few weeks, has been making his high-pitched voice heard in favor of installing CCTV cameras all over the streets while recommending teaching “national security” in schools.

Xinhua’s refusal to “grant” a trade union law to Macao is easily understandable. For a start, the move was considered as useless: in the People’s Republic of China, the All China Federation of Trade Unions was (and still is) a mass organization directly supervised by the Chinese Communist Party, thus the mere idea of an “independent” relay in society representing the workers’ interests did not strike a chord. Moreover, the Macao Federation of Trade Unions (FAOM) already existed — “sponsored” by the Chinese communists at the end of the 1950s [actually early 1950s]— and it had faithfully served its purpose by ensuring stability for the good sake of the colonial administration and swiftly channelling the political guidance of Beijing. Finally, the initiative looked rather suspicious: after all, the colonizers had had ample time to pass such a piece of legislation, why the sudden rush? Why now and not then?

Could things change for the better after 1999? Looking back at 1992, that was the year when Fernando Chui Sai On got elected for the first time at the Legislative Assembly on a ticket representing… the Macao Federation of Trade Unions! The charity arms of business interests in the territory take good care of the most deprived members of society, so much so actually that it prohibits them from being genuinely represented.

Thus, although the right to form and join a union is enshrined in Article 27 of the Macao Basic Law and constitutes a significant component of at least three international covenants and conventions of which Macao is a signatory, there is no way the benevolent entrepreneurs who run the show will ever introduce such a law on their own, without a strong enough push from the ones vying for it. Legislator José Pereira Coutinho knows it more than anyone else: he tried to introduce a trade union law on nine occasions and failed flatly every single time. And even when he got the support of the “yellow” FAOM — in this part of the world, we say “tofu union” — it was never enough to tilt the balance in the right direction.

Back in 2007, when we still had dozens of independent organizations taking to the streets and 5 or 6,000 demonstrators showing up on May 1, some saw the possibility for a very embryonic bona fide civil society to develop. That was the time when plainclothes policemen would shoot in the air to intimidate the crowd! The next year, the wealth-partaking scheme went into effect.

Fast forward to today: May 1 has become a total fraud! The FAOM organizes banquets with the government on the evening of April 30, and its main demand concerns a few extra bank holidays that fall on Sundays! The most vocal demonstrators defend their property rights, and trust more the Liaison Office than Mr Tam! Meanwhile, labour rights in Macao have remained the same since… the mid-1980s! Consumers of the world, Unite!

Published in Macau Daily Times on May 4, 2018

Kapok: The colonial past

Reading what Lei Chan U had to say this week about the functions of the Permanent Council for Social Dialogue startled me somehow. During an oral interpellation addressed to the government, Legislator Lei raised some doubts not only about the role but also the achievements of the Council in establishing a truly constructive dialogue between employers and employees. He went even further in questioning the sincerity of the government as to its genuine intention — repeated numerous times — to use to the full this venue. After all, as we were aptly reminded, this “consultative body” is officially entrusted by the Chief Executive to help the government carve up labor-related policies and aims at providing employers and employees with a platform to establish an equal and effective dialogue.” In brief, the Council is there to kickstart social dialogue and help the parties, including the government, reach a “consensus”.

My initial dismay arose when I traced back the origins of this Council. To be completely honest, I was expecting the so-called “plate-form” to be just one among many other consultative bodies supposed to help the government in drafting sound public policies while preserving social harmony: there are 44 such advisory committees today and quite a number have been created recently — even though a few have been axed as there used to be 47 two years ago. Just like anything in Macao, most of these are populated by the same old “personalities”: back in 2016, the Chinese publication All About Macau had revealed that some 24 “happy few” had been sitting on at least three boards of public agencies and consultative committees. Paul Tse and the ever-loyal Vong In Fai totaled 7 such positions each, in total contradiction with Mr Chui Sai On’s 2015 pledge that no one could concurrently sit on more than three advisory bodies and for no more than six years in any case.

Most of these bodies are at best useless: after all, if they did not exist, we could have a real contradictory and public debate about policymaking, one in which expertise would tend to indicate the overall direction rather than vested petty interests dedicating all their efforts at preserving the status quo and very occasionally engaging in damage control.

But the Permanent Council for Social Dialogue is actually not that recent, as it was created back in 1987 under the auspices of Governor Joaquim Pinto Machado, one of the founding members of the Social Democratic Party of Mario Soares and appointed by the latter, then president of Portugal, to the position of governor in 1986. These were times when socialism and social-democracy meant something in the territory, and that also paved the way for the Chinese-backed “livelihood faction” led by Alexandre Ho Si-Him, to grow in popularity and win the 1988 legislative elections with the highest number of votes, thus allowing for three truly independent figures to get into the Assembly.

So indeed, Mr Lei Chan U is right: the Council is but a shadow of what it used to be! But he himself bears part of the responsibility as the two figures representing workers’ interests are himself and Choi Kam Fu, and both of them are from the Macao Federation of Trade Unions (FAOM), a very pro-establishment and pro-Beijing organization that has failed, for example, to simply propose a Trade Union Law in the past two decades. Mr Lei is vice-president of that organization and was elected a first-term legislator in September 2017 through indirect elections — that is to say that he ran for the position without any form of competition. And then on the side of the employers, one of the stellar figures representing “the employers” is none other than Kou Hoi In, himself also a legislator who was one of the most conservative voices in the Assembly, together with Dominic Sio, when the Labor Relations Law was amended back in 2015.

Indeed, members of these advisory bodies are today gate-keepers: they preserve the interests of their cast or corporation. The problem is, Mr Lei: you are one of them!

Published in Macau Daily Times on February 16, 2018