Resistance of Labor Aristocracy: A Study of the Casino Labor Movement in Macao

• Main Authors: Lio, Chi-Fai, 廖志輝
• Other Authors: Miao, Yen-Wei
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2018
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/z732zg

碩士 === 國立政治大學 === 東亞研究所 === 106 === This research aims to examine Macao’s casino labor movement in the mid-2010s. After being returned to China and opening up the casino market in 1999, Macao has witnessed a rapid socio-economic growth, and at the same time, labor protests against the capitalists and the state powerholders have mushroomed. In 2014, thousands of casino employees, or the so-called “labor aristocracy”, have been mobilized in a series of protests that Macao people have never experienced during the “Reunification” era. Focusing on this protest and putting it into a broad labor movement context in Macao, we adopt a theoretical perspective of social movements to get a more meaningful analysis. Our data sources include official documents and statistics, newspaper reports, social media such as Facebook, interviews with movement participants and relevant informers, field notes, and related literature. We find that three elements are particularly significant in the contentious process of Macao’s casino labor movement: (1) the master frame of anti-imported labor that movement organizers used to shape their collective identity; (2) contentious activists’ perceptions toward threats and opportunities for the movement, and (3) the influences of other-issue-oriented protests occurred both in Macao and Hong Kong during the same period. This research also finds that labor protests in Macao, including the casino labor movement, can be characterized as “low mobilized, moderate, and issue-oriented”, in the sense that the authority was capable of influencing the labor unions by various means. Thus the unions need to empower themselves in the future.