Transcript 4415_0_CityU workshop

Labour Regulation in the
Liberalized Casino Economy:
Croupiers in Macau
Alex H. Choi & Eva Hung
University of Macau
Introduction
• Casino as a development strategy in the neoliberalized economy of global consumption
− Casino explosion
• Job creation as critical for casino legalization
− Jobs are low-skill, part-time, temporary, and poorly
paid
− Tend to employ women, migrants and ethnic
minorities
• Macau’s croupiers as an exception
− Well paid, full-time with good benefits, and careeroriented; reserved only for local residents
Questions
• Why casino capital appears to have delivered
on their promise in Macau?
• What have made the otherwise inept and
captured Macau government concern about
labour welfare?
Argument
• How the unique mode of accumulation in
Macau gives rise to a particular preference for
labour regulation
• Key regulation strategy
− The creation of an aristocratic labour elite
subservient to the state
Mode of Accumulation
• Tourist players from China
− To pop up the prosperity of Macau, China
opened the floodgate allowing its residents
easier visit to the gambling Mecca
− Corrupted cadres and nouveau-riche as the
key clients of VIP rooms, accounting for over
60% of total casino revenue
• Transnational casino capital
− Scrambled to find a base in Macau, where
they can have direct access to the lucrative
Chinese market
− Casino gambling is still criminalized inside
China proper
• Local state / local capital
− The local state is under the tight control of
a small number of local families
− Ability to cut political deals and to be
compradors for the transnational
− Their economic position is contingent on its
hold onto political power
• The provision of local labour power
− Increase of labour import however stirred
up political instability
• The symbiosis
− Casino state and casino capital contingent
on each other
• 70% of the state revenue comes directly from
casino taxes
− Hence, a labor regulation regime which on
the one hand provides the necessary labour
force and on the other hand lends political
legitimacy to the local state
From Enterprise Paternalism to
State Regulation
• Before liberalization, STDM was the sole
purchaser of croupier labour power in Macau
• Croupiers tightly controlled in a paternalistic
and authoritarian labour regime
− Well paid, but promotion by connections
− Punishment by public humiliation (下野)
− Seniority counted in pay and status (實位); and
position could be sold
− If fired, end of their career
• Ending of the monopoly means the need to
create a new regime
− To expand the supply of croupiers
• Gaming tables: from 339 (2002) to 4017 (2008)
• No. of croupiers (2008): 18,196
− To prevent shortage from escalating into even
higher labour costs
− To impose discipline at the supra-enterprise level
• A task the government has actively engaged
since 2002
New Mode of Labour Regulation
• Aristocratization and politicization of
croupiers
− Lowly educated people can become a croupier and
earn a middle class income
− A way to escape from the job insecurity and
depressed wage created by the migrant worker
program in the wider labour market
• Migrant workers account for more than 25% of
working population in Macau
− A government policy of not allowing migrant
workers in the card dealing occupation
• Reiterated verbally many times but never found
in any government policy papers
− Croupiers thus serve as a safety valve for the
regime
• The unemployed could wait for their turn for a
croupier position
− Croupiers become an aristocratic labour class
whose existence is vulnerable to the whim of the
authoritarian state
• Embourgeoisement of the croupiers
− Croupiers as the newly emerged “middle class”
• Based on the amount of disposable income
rather than other middle class characteristics
• The public display of consumption power exerts
tremendous influences on the youngsters; kids
are quitting school to join their rank
− Croupiers are celebrated as model for a prosperous
Macau society
• Control and disciplinization
− Croupiers as subjected to a very rigorous regime of
regulation (strict adherence to protocol), and
monitored by surveillance cameras and superiors
− But collusion with players and stealing of chips do
happen
• Misbehaviors caused by gambling addiction and
the owing of huge amount of debts
− A licensing system to prevent croupiers from
gambling in other casinos
• More government control on who can have
access to these lucrative jobs
• Hence the disciplinary effect even more
prominent
• Compliant unionism
− Macau FTU monopolized the trade union sector;
part of the ruling coalition
− Macau Gaming Industry Labourers Association
• Run like a family business by its boss, Joao Bosco
Cheang
• Key function: the operation of a croupier
training centre; financed by the government
• An electoral machine for Cheang and his team
− Macau Gaming Enterprises Staff’s Association
• Set up in 2007
• Recruits members not only from croupiers but
also from all kinds of workers in the entire
casino industry
• More active in voicing out labour concerns
− Both unions espouse labour-capital harmony and
shun radical action
• They will voice out labour concerns, but none
dare to back them up with labour action
− Hence, a kind of “press conference unionism”
• A racial hierarchy
− A multinational workforce
• The job of croupiers reserved for local Macau
residents but not other casino positions
− A racial mix and hierarchy
• Lowest rank: from mainland China and SE Asia
• Well paid croupiers, cage workers: Macau
residents
• Management positions: from Hong Kong and
developed countries
− Racial mix not an unintentional consequence
• The employment of well paid Macau croupier is
exchanged with a large quota of low paid
migrant workers in other positions
Conclusion
• Macau croupiers as “aristocratic labour”
− Politically constructed in order to stabilize the
casino regime; central to a labour regulation
system created for the post-liberalization economy
• Hence a tolerance of its obvious irrationality
and negative impacts
− Limited promotion opportunities because higher-up
positions are filled up by professional migrant
workers
− High pay for low skill work encourages school dropouts, and is bad to the future of Macau
• Croupiers used as pawns in political fights
− E.g. croupiers were fired en masse in 2008 to
create the political pressure to push China to relax
the restriction on tourist visiting Macau
• Croupiers are constructed as objects in the
present political environment
− Its wellbeing are linked to the necessities for
creating a legitimacy for the regime
− Could be put on the chopping block any time if an
alternative is found
• Thus, well paid croupiers is a nice creation out
of unique conditions