Fierce debate on civil servant salary hike

2012-03-30
From: Macau Daily Times

The Legislative Assembly (AL) witnessed a fierce debate yesterday on the salary hike of 6.5 percent for civil servants, which was finally approved but without retroactive effect as many public workers requested. On the AL plenary session, lawmaker Joseacute Pereira Coutinho, who is also the president of the Macau Civil Servants Association, raised a proposal to approve the salary increase by emergency procedure, which was opposed by all other fellow legislators.
Coutinho explained that the requested was based on the fact that the government tender the bill to AL too late. The lawmaker considers that the hike was announced much later than it should be. According to him, it would be fairer to have a retroactive effect back to January this year, instead of May as scheduled after the approval by AL. Coutinho formally proposed to vote the bill through an emergency mechanism, so that the retroactive effect could be added to the bill.
Although some lawmakers expressed support to make the increase retroactively, virtually all of them were rather critical of Coutinhos emergent decision. Au Kam San agreed with Coutinho, saying that the government always tender the bills to the assembly too late or too promptly. In is opinion, that makes the retroactively effect necessary to compensate the loss of time. But he said it was contradictory for Coutinho to do so because it would take more time and delays if new articles were to be added to the bill, which would make the increase even later. But the unyielding Coutinho refuted, saying the government has a fleet of legal professionals who can do the revision and amendments in what he claimed ten minutes time.
Automatic votes

The exchange heated up when the indirectly-elected lawmaker Chan Chak Mo questioned Coutinho for siding with the civil servants in order to get credits and votes. The directed elected Coutinho hit back: I have to secure my votes because Im directly-elected by voters, unlike the indirectly-elected lawmakers who only sit there and wait for the automatic votes.
The once indirectly elected now directly elected lawmaker Lee Chong Cheng joined the verbal fight and said all lawmakers are there for the good of the public and should not be classified as directly or indirectly elected ones. He accused Coutinho of tarnishing all the indirectly elected legislators. Coutinho rebutted that he was only referring to Chan Chak Mo, but if Lee thought the remark also applied to him, wear the shoe if it fits you then.
The debate in salary increase continued to slide into democracy just when the city is conducting public consultation in which many people, including Coutinho, accused the government of fixing what it called public opinion by suggesting to add two more indirectly elected AL seats, which are regarded as democracy rolling backward. Ung Cho Kun, another directly elected lawmaker, however also expressed sympathy with the indirectly elected ones, saying that many legislators, including AL president Lau Cheok Va were indirectly elected or once indirectly elected, and that it should not matter as far as the lawmaker serve his or her duty by doing a good job.
The focus of the debate shifted back to the emergency request this time, as Ho Sio Kam questioned the needs to resort to this mechanism: If we use the emergency system too frequently, nothing is emergent and the system will lose its function. He also expressed concern that the public might have negative impression of the assembly should they have a conception that the lawmakers resort to the unusual procedures too easily, that might affect of the quality of the legislations.
Fong Chi Keong, on the other hand, questioned Coutinhos intention to skip the usual procedure and opted for the emergent one: Its not your privilege to concern for the civil servants, just like democracy is not anybodys privilege. Ung Choi Kun also said that he had not heard any civil servants said they depend on the pay increase to feed themselves, thus he did not see the reason to put it to the emergent channel. The emergency request was vetoed and only Coutinho voted in favor.
The focus of the debate shifted back to salary as Tsio Wai Kwun, the Chief Executive appointed lawmaker, challenged Coutinho, saying his remarks and attitude left the public with an impression that civil servants are greedy, because they had already enjoyed four times of hikes in the past seven years, totally 22 percent of increase, which was unmatched by workers in the private sector. It is unreasonable for the public workers to further request a retroactive effect.
Ho Sio Kam also pointed out that during his talks with some civil servants, many of them actually did not insist in getting the retroactive effect. Ho Iat Sang said he supported the salary increase, however, he came up with another request, related to the promise made by the Secretary for Administration and Justice Florinda Chan, who said that the hike must be coupled with an improvement of services by the public workers.
Chan said the hike was decided on three factors, including inflation, overall condition of the labor market, as well as the financial condition of the government. The increase would cost the government MOP700 million in the first year, and 9 million each following year, and that the authority had never promised to the public workers during the consultation with more than 20 civil servant groups.
Although some concerns were also expressed by some legislators that the increase would cause pressure on private companies which had to follow or risk losing more employees, and that might stimulate inflation and trigger a need for a new round of pay hike for the public workers, the bill was approved as expected.

Copyright Macau Daily Times