The government reaffirmed on Wednesday that it will finally submit a bill on the implementation of a statutory minimum wage for all workers to the legislature this year.
Macau is the only Chinese jurisdiction that still does not have an overall minimum wage law.
Executive Council spokesman Leong Heng Teng made the remarks while replying to media questions during a press conference at Government Headquarters, where he announced that the council, the government’s top advisory body, has drafted a bill which proposes that the statutory minimum wage for cleaners and doormen employed by the property management sector be raised to 32 patacas per hour from the current amount of 30 patacas an hour, an increase of 6.6 percent.
Government-drafted bills must be passed by the Legislative Assembly to become law. Leong did not say when the bill will be submitted to the legislature.
A statutory minimum wage of 30 patacas per hour – or 240 patacas a day or 6,240 patacas a month – for cleaners and doormen employed by the property management sector has been in force since January 1, 2016.
The bill on the statutory minimum wage for cleaners and doormen was passed by the legislature in July 2015. Since then the government has said that it aims for the statutory minimum wage to be extended to all employment sectors within three years of the bill coming into force – meaning it should have been implemented by January 2019.
The minimum wage law for cleaners and doormen requires the government to review the amount of the minimum wage every year.
The government first proposed during a regular closed-door meeting of the Standing Council on Social Concerted Action in October last year that the statutory minimum wage for cleaners and doormen employed by the property management sector be raised to 32 patacas.
The council, chaired by Secretary for Economy and Finance Lionel Leong Vai Tac, consists of five business sector representatives and five labour representatives, as well as a number of government officials.
During the meeting of the council in October last year, the government briefed the council on a government-drafted report about the implementation of the statutory minimum wage for cleaners and doormen during 2017.
Unionists have criticised the government for having failed to review the amount of the minimum wage for cleaners and doormen every year – as demanded by the existing statutory minimum wage law.
The unionists have said that the government should have reviewed the amount of the minimum wage in 2017, adding that, however, the government only presented its report about 2017’s implementation of the statutory minimum wage for cleaners and doormen to members of the Standing Council on Social Concerted Action in October last year.
The government launched a 45-day public consultation in November 2017 on the proposed implementation of a statutory minimum wage for all employment sectors.
The bill presented by Leong during a press conference is to amend the existing statutory minimum wage law for cleaners and doormen which came into force on January 1, 2016.
According to Leong, the amendment bill proposes that cleaners and doormen employed by the property management sector be raised to 32 patacas an hour – or 256 patacas a day or 6,656 patacas a month.
