Macau casino staff against working in smoking areas: survey

Dec 17, 2014 Newsdesk Latest News, Macau, Top of the deck  

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Three in four casino workers (78 percent) in Macau don’t want to work in smoking areas, even if casino operators provide them extra incentives, a new survey has found.

The results also showed that 49 percent of respondents were unhappy with the implementation of the smoking ban by their employers.

The survey was conducted by the influential Macau Federation of Trade Unions, the city’s largest labour platform. The results were announced on Tuesday. The labour group is a strong advocate of a full smoking ban in the city’s casinos.

Smoking restrictions have been imposed in phases on the main floors of Macau’s casinos since January 2013. Under the latest rule changes on October 6, smoking inside casinos is only allowed in VIP rooms and in smoking lounges on mass floors. Smoking lounges are not allowed to have any gaming tables or slot machines.

A total of 1,042 casino workers were interviewed in September and October for the survey. Dealers accounted for 42 percent of the respondents, said the Macau Federation of Trade Unions.

The results showed that 54 percent of casino workers said they had “no confidence” in their job prospects. When asked about the areas in their work they were most dissatisfied with, most respondents (70 percent) highlighted their wages and benefits.

The majority of interviewees said they feared the importation of more labour to Macau could hurt their employability and wage levels.

The city had about 164,500 migrant workers – know locally as ‘blue card holders’ – at end-October, an all-time high. Around 13,600 were working in “recreational, cultural, gaming and other services”, according to official data.

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