Share scheme a reward for voluntary pay cut: Wynn Macau

Jun 07, 2022 Newsdesk Latest News, Macau, Top of the deck  

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Casino operator Wynn Macau Ltd said in a Tuesday emailed reply to GGRAsia that its proposed voluntary compensatory scheme involving some staff receiving company shares was “a gesture of appreciation” for workers agreeing to a “voluntary temporary salary reduction from June to December 2022”.

“As a gesture of appreciation during these challenging times, participating team members will receive company shares equivalent to the value of the salary reduction,” said the statement.

It further noted, referring to a Macau government department: “We have been closely communicating with the Labour Affairs Bureau to ensure these arrangements are in full compliance of the law.”

The statement said that “over 90 percent” of Wynn Macau Ltd’s management team had agreed to the voluntary temporary salary reduction.

A memo to Wynn Macau Ltd staff, seen last month by GGRAsia, had mentioned management-level workers being asked to volunteer to take 10 percent of their monthly base pay in the form of company stock.

At the time, GGRAsia approached Wynn Macau Ltd seeking comment on the voluntary scheme mentioned in the memo, but the company had said that it did not have any comment on the subject raised.

Subsequent to GGRAsia’s original story, a written question on May 27 from Macau legislator Ron Lam U Tou, put to the city’s government, had queried whether a staff compensation scheme involving shares was legal under Macau’s Labour Relations Law.

A written reply from the Labour Affairs Bureau, publicised on Tuesday, had addressed the issue of “remuneration payment” needing to be in cash, in the Macau pataca, under the city’s Labour Relations Law.

The bureau said in its reply to the legislator: “If the employee and the employer have agreed the remuneration payment is settled in a non-cash format, it does not fit the aforementioned legal requirements. According to Labour Relations Law Article 14 Item (3), this related agreement will be considered non-existent.”

It added: “Companies cannot pay the remuneration [to staff] in the form of shares.”

The reply from the labour bureau did not address the issue of any “gesture of appreciation” in the event of a “voluntary temporary salary reduction” as mentioned in Wynn Macau Ltd’s statement on Tuesday.

Wynn Macau Ltd, which runs the Wynn Palace resort on Cotai, and Wynn Macau (pictured) on the city’s peninsula, saw ts quarterly loss widen to US$188.5 million in the three months to March 31, compared to a loss amounting to US$161.2 million in the prior-year quarter.

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