Macau Casino Labour Activist Cloee Chao Sao Fong Runs for Legislator Seat

Macau gaming labour group activist Cloee Chao Sao Fong will lead an election ticket for the upcoming Legislative Assembly Election. Her ticket features several other casino workers respectively seeking a directly-elected legislator seat.

The election will be on September 12, according to the city’s Electoral Affairs Commission. Typically, a candidate topping a ticket has the best chance of winning a seat, if the ticket can itself garner a sufficient portion of the votes available. She stood unsuccessfully in the 2017 election.

Ms Chao, known to the public for heading the New Macau Gaming Staff Rights Association, submitted on Monday to the Electoral Affairs Commission the candidate list for her ticket, and its electoral platform. Eight candidates – including her – will run on a ticket to “advocate casino workers’ rights and benefits”, she remarked to local media at the time her group handed over its list to the authorities.

“We hope that we could win at least one [directly-elected] seat in the assembly,” Ms Chao said.

Ms Chao told local media that her election ticket would stand on a platform of: defending local workers’ employment prospects; advocating better benefits for casino shift workers; and pushing for a trade union law in the city. The platform is similar to what a ticket with her as a candidate offered at the 2017 election.

Ms Chao has been prominent in recent years in lobbying the city’s government on labour disputes occurring between casino employees and the city’s casino operators.