Jobless Migrant Workers in Macau During the Pandemic (Part 2)

Narrated by Yosa Yanti, Chairperson of the Indonesian Migrant Worker Union in Macau 

By Isabelle Cheng, University of Portsmouth

I am an Indonesian domestic worker in Macau. The length of working day set by the Macau government for migrant domestic workers is 12 hours, and 8–9 hours for migrant workers who work in a hotel, casino, spa or other businesses in the formal sector. The government explains that as domestic workers we can manage our time during the day, including taking a rest when we are not working. In reality, we do not always have time to take a rest. We have to stand by all the time.

My organisation, the Indonesian Migrant Worker Union in Macau (IMWU), started helping migrant workers 13 years ago in 2008. We help migrant workers who lost their jobs, who encountered problems with their employers, or who did not know about their rights under labour laws. They can stay in our shelter and there have been a lot of people staying here. On average there are always 4 or 5 people staying. We do not only help Indonesian workers; those who seek legal advice on disputes with their employers or agencies also include some from the Philippines, Myanmar, Bangladesh, and other countries. The IMWU has no licence to run our community work, but my work has connected me with some local people and local associations who can help us when needed.

I am not a live-in domestic worker. I rent a house and live outside of my work. My house is also the IMWU office, a shelter, and a classroom where we offer classes for language and computer skill training for workers who are employed in a range of different sectors. The language training offered by us includes Cantonese, English, and Mandarin because Macau is an international tourist destination. Local employers and businesses in Macau speak Cantonese. English is less useful in everyday life, since the official language here is Portuguese, but international tourists speak English. Additionally, Mandarin is useful for dealing with tourist from China. Because of this mixed use of languages in our daily life, migrant workers in Macau need to know all of these languages.

Before coming to Macau, I worked in Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong[1]. In total, I have been away from home and working abroad for 16 years. I did not think about it much when I first started working in Taiwan. I was very young at that time. When I was working in Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong, I did not know anything about community work. When I was in Hong Kong, I worked with a very difficult employer so I took part in cultural activities, such as dancing, as a way to relax away from my very stressful work.

I moved from Hong Kong to Macau after the grandfather I looked after in Hong Kong passed away. There is no agreement on the recruitment of migrant workers between Macau and Indonesia, so I came to Macau on a tourist visa. Although migrant workers, like myself, could enter Macau on a tourist visa, we cannot be employed on this visa. From outside of Macau, we know very little about how to apply for visas and work permits, so we have to use an agency to find an employer, then the agency and employer can apply for a work permit for us. Agencies charge us a lot of money, usually between 14,000 and 15,000 dollars (MOP). If it is a job in the formal sector and if the salary is, for example, 7,000 dollars (MOP), then we have to pay the agency a fee of twice that amount, which is deducted from our salary. Some people lost their jobs after one month but still they had to pay the agency their fee. Paying such a large amount in fees and having deductions from our salary is our biggest worry.

Last year during the pandemic, many migrant workers lost jobs because their employers were also out of work. We domestic workers were luckier because we could keep our jobs. Those who worked in the formal sector, such as hotels or spas, became jobless, because these businesses were closed. Some companies withdrew their sponsorship for migrants’ work permits; this cut short the validity of their visas. I used to rent a big house as my office, classroom, and shelter. Now, I have less money and I have moved to a smaller house, but all of our activities have continued.[2]

Piles of rice sacks

The pandemic hit migrant workers really hard. Some did not have any income for four months; others were out of work for a whole year. Those who lost their jobs had to make the decision whether to stay or return home. If they stayed, they had no income and living costs here are very high. Moreover, they still had to pay the rent. Some Indonesian workers managed to return home, when flights were still available and when the Indonesian Consulate was registering those who wished to return home.[3] There were more than 5,600 Indonesian workers in Macau last year before the pandemic, but 2,000 have already left. 8,000 Filipino workers also left. Those from Vietnam are very unfortunate. There is no flight available between Macau and Vietnam. They have got stuck here. For those who got stuck here, the Macau government allowed them to extend their visa every 20 days.

Although I am not a live-in domestic worker, during the two-week lockdown in February last year, my employer asked me to stay with them. They could not go out but they asked me to stay in their house. As a result of this request, there was more work to do: more cleaning, more cooking and we also had to go out shopping. Everyone bought so much food! It was scary since people were not allowed to go out; the police would question anyone who was on the street. After the end of the two-week lockdown, we could go out and we had to wear facemasks. During the first wave of infection (last January and February), people in Macau were panicking when there was a shortage of facemasks. They were sold at 8 dollars (MOP) for a pack of 10 masks. Macau residents, with their ID cards (locally known as the ‘White Cards’), and Blue Card holders (foreign workers who are granted a work permit) were eligible to buy facemasks. But migrant workers who were on a tourist visa or those who were waiting for their visa found it very difficult to purchase facemasks; facemask availability improved for them later on.

Dividing donations

 During the two-month lockdown of last February and March, I started to call for donations to help those who were out of work. I received donations from Indonesian people in Indonesia, Macau, and Hong Kong. During the first lockdown, we received donated facemasks because, at that time, that was what we needed most. However, towards the end of March, we began to organise fund raising and used donated money to buy food. Local organisations and churches also gave us donations. It is very touching that they reached out and helped us. Last month (August) the government announced  another two-week lockdown between 4 and 18 August. To this day, there is still one local organisation giving us rice, noodles, biscuits, etc.

Collecting donations in the night

For one year, using Facebook, I organised fund raising like this and gave food to people who came to my shelter. I created a group on Facebook and I shared information there. I collected donated money and a variety of things. I packed them into individual bags, as many as 200. I made a list of people who needed them and told people that they could receive these bags from me. They could text me and tell me why they were in need. I worked with our members on all of this. We worked together after we finished our paid work. We domestic workers often finish work around 9–10 pm. Since we do not live with our employers, we start working on these donations after we go home. For me, I finish work at midnight and I often carried on working on arranging donations till 3 am. Most Indonesian workers in Macau are women, so most of my members are women. Luckily, six of my members are men; other men also came to help us because they were out of work. They are very helpful for packing food, particularly dealing with those heavy rice sacks!

Some domestic workers came to seek advice from us during the lockdown. They refused to stay in their employers’ houses during the lockdown, but their employers threatened them with the withdrawal of their work permits. If they were withdrawn, domestic workers would not be allowed to stay in Macau. Only workers employed by businesses are employed with a standard contract; domestic workers are not, so their employment and residency in Macau is not secure.

Although the lockdown only lasted two weeks last February, the impact has continued after the lifting of the lockdown.[4] There are still people who have no jobs, who cannot go home or who have no food. At IMWU, we were all very tired but we were very proud that we could help others. Sadly, local people’s attitudes towards migrant workers did not change at all during and after the pandemic. They thought domestic workers from Indonesia or the Philippines were dirty or carrying the virus because a very small number of them tested positive. We were very happy that local organisations helped us at a time when it is very difficult for everyone.

[1] URL of another blog.

[2] https://www.facebook.com/1644314355849558/posts/2808695789411403/?sfnsn=mo.

[3] https://apmigration.ilo.org/news/chinas-macau-repatriates-93-indonesian-migrant-workers

[4] https://macaonews.org/social-affairs/hong-kong-zhuhai-macao-bridge-shuttle-bus-to-make-six-roundtrips-daily/.