Concerns arise over table-game system
Following protests and petitions from workers demanding fair pay, MGM China has announced it will hand out special bonuses that could see some employees earn up to 14 months’ worth of their normal salary for 2017.
According to GGRAsia, frontline workers demonstrated outside MGM Cotai in late January led by organizers from the New Macau Gaming Staff Rights Association. They claimed the company does not practice parity in distributing raises and bonuses to employees. Macau Business reported that senior staff receive the equivalent of three months’ salary as a bonus, but frontline workers only get one month’s salary.
MGM’s discretionary bonus is equal to one month’s salary and will be paid in two equal installments in February 2018. A second special bonus equal to an extra month’s salary will be paid in July 2018 to recognize all eligible team members of MGM Macau and MGM Cotai “for their efforts in maintaining MGM Macau’s smooth operation while supporting the opening of MGM Cotai,” the company said.
MGM China CEO and Executive Director Grant Bowie called the adjustments “our appreciation and recognition to our team members for their hard work, contribution and commitment to MGM.”
At the same time, a petition with 1,588 signatures was submitted to the company at its Cotai property to express workers’ dissatisfaction with salary adjustments. Cloee Chao, president of the New Macau Gaming Staff Rights Association, said the Casino Chip Attribution System may expose workers to “unknown electrical technology use” and purportedly causes symptoms like respiratory distress.
A group of the workers also delivered a petition to the city’s Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau demanding an investigation into potential health risks associated with the CCAS.
MGM had previously denied there was any potential danger arising from the use of chips or tables fitted with CCAS technology, pointing out that any energy released was minimal and substantially less than that released by mobile phones. But Asia Gaming Brief reports that some workers say some workers are left feeling nauseous after working with the system.
Protesters claimed that workers controlling CCAS have been exposed to “unknown electrical technology use,” with workers allegedly feeling respiratory distress.
