Older Galaxy Ent staff pressured to resign: labour group
March 04, 2018 |
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Several gaming workers reportedly petitioned Macau’s Labour Affairs Bureau on Friday, claiming that they had been unfairly treated by their employer, casino operator Galaxy Entertainment Group Ltd (GEG). The workers alleged they had been put under pressure to resign at their approaching 60th birthday, and on less favourable terms than workers of similar age in the past. In Macau there is no mandatory retirement age for private-sector workers. Galaxy Entertainment said in a statement sent to GGRAsia that it denied discriminating against older staff.
Some of those making the allegation received support from Macau gaming worker group Professional for Gaming of New Macau. The petitioning workers were close to 60 years old, said the labour group’s president Cloee Chao (pictured in a file photo) in comments to GGRAsia.
She said some workers had been asked to sign papers agreeing voluntary retirement but were subsequently not satisfied with the company offering only payment from a Galaxy Entertainment provident fund for its workers.
Ms Chao said such arrangements amounted to a change of policy by Galaxy Entertainment, as she asserted the firm used to offer those employees that voluntarily resigned, a payment from its provident fund and compensation calculated according to the worker’s length of service.
“We’ve noticed this change in [compensation] policy for workers since half a year ago,” Ms Chao told us. “…Many of these complaining workers have been employed for about five to eleven years, and are mainly from entry positions in security departments, and table games.”
For workers that are close to 60 years old and have chosen to continue to work in the company, they have been asked to accept a condition that their work contract will be renewed on a yearly basis, claimed Ms Chao. This was also something upsetting the petitioning workers, she claimed.
GGRAsia asked Galaxy Entertainment to comment specifically on the labour group’s allegation regarding those workers petitioning on Friday the Labour Affairs Bureau, but had not received a response by the time this story went online.
The company had earlier issued a statement that said: “…GEG encourages team members at 60 years old or above to continue to stay in the workforce with GEG. Nevertheless, we fully respect the… wish of the related employees, whether they would like to continue to serve the company. GEG stresses that we value team members as the most important assets and strictly abide by the Labour Relations Law of the Macau SAR Government; meanwhile, for team members who are 60 years old or above and have chosen to stay with GEG, their length of service has been counted.”
The casino operator also noted that it had been reviewing its benefit policy “in order to enhance employee protection”, and will make related adjustments when appropriate.
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