Chatchai Phaiyasen   > General Secretary, Thai Industrial Gases Labour Union

 

How would you describe the situation of Contract and Agency Labour in your country?

CAL in Thailand is growing very fast and becoming a very serious problem. CAL employment is used by employers to destroy trade unions. Nowadays more and more workers are being employed on short term and fixed term contracts: 6 months or one year. Workers are being told by the employers they are employed as ‘fixed term regular contract’. And in many instances, workers are forced to be transferred from one employer to another although they are still working at the same workplace and in the same position.

Such kind of employment practice is aiming to exploit and take advantage from workers both in terms of wage and benefits. Under CAL employment, workers have difficulty to exercise the right to organize because they can be easily dismissed with the reason of contract expiration.

At the same time, the government seems to ignore solving CAL problem. The Ministry of Labour which is directly in charged of looking after workers, is also employing a large number of contract and agency workers inside the Ministry.

Therefore, we can say that CAL problem in Thailand is getting very severe and moving toward full scale slavery contract employment.

Can you describe the differences in working conditions and livelihood between CAL workers and Non CAL workers in Thailand, in your sector?

With the same period of employment, CAL workers earn 30 per cent to more than 100 per cent less than permanent workers.

When employing CAL workers, the employer applies the rate of legal minimum wage and most employers do not give annual wage increase. Fixed term workers face the same problem - when their contracts are renewed, they get the same wage as in the previous years. Only when the government increases the legal minimum wage, CAL workers may get wage increase.

The legal minimum wage in Thailand is far below the standard living need. And with the deductions for taxes and payment for social security benefits, the wage that workers bring home can not provide even for basic living.

In terms of welfare benefits, the employers would make it clear that only permanent workers get this provision such as health coverage, annual health check up, providence fund, and bonus payment. Even PPE or personal protective equipment, the companies push the burden on CAL workers that they must purchase for themselves.

Even for the most basic protection as stipulated by the Labour Protection Act, CAL workers are also being violated. CAL workers who are pregnant are often dismissed. When taking sick leave, CAL workers are not paid wage for the days they are sick. CAL workers do not have the right to take holiday. And they have to work longer hours than permanent workers. Thus it can be said that the working and living conditions of CAL workers are very different from permanent workers. Permanent workers can work until they reach retirement age or if they are dismissed they are entitled to compensation payment. CAL workers on the contrary can be dismissed any time and they hardly get any compensation for the dismissal.

What are the main challenges Thai unions meet in their fight against CAL?

Big multinational companies: these companies have huge money power and they are prepared to invest in all types of practices in order to destroy trade unions such as employing legal consultants to give advice on how to kill unions or dismiss key union activists, or provide money incentives to motivate workers to leave unions and use CAL employment to undermine union power and interfere in workers organization.

Interference of union activity by government authority such as by revoking union license (non recognition of union by government) and harassment of union activists by government authority by way of checking on union membership. Such kind of interference by government authority is serious as this gives excuses to the employers not to engage in dialogue with the unions. When unions recruit agency workers, government authority interferes by way of checking eligibility of CAL workers who  join the unions and inform the companies. Under this situation, the companies often refuse to recognize union representation of CAL workers.

Thai Industrial Relations Act 1975 is outdated and far below the standards provided by the ILO convention number 87 and 98. This causes serious barriers for workers organizing. Also when workers make attempts for collective bargaining they often face lock out order by the employers who use lock out to pressure workers to withdraw their demands.

The justice system in Thailand is also problematic. The system of industrial court, and labour inspector are far from being reliable for workers. There was a very recent case whereby the industrial court gave a ruling that the employer was not guilty for violating the collective agreement because that agreement was signed in the night time when the employer was under pressure to sign the agreement with the union. This is serious problem for the whole union movement because all the agreements concerning CAL are signed in the night time.

Inadequate understanding in the depth and extent of CAL problem in Thailand by international organizations. MNCs from Europe often claim that CAL employment is the company policy and Thai unions should accept CAL employment otherwise it would be seen as unions obstructing companies’ business. MNCs also claim that in Europe trade union movement accepts CAL employment. Thus sometimes we face difficulty to explain the problems we are facing to international organizations because what we experience today such as discrimination of CAL workers is what trade union movement in Europe had experienced 100 years ago. The different situations in Thailand and Europe make it very difficult for us to explain our problems in Thailand while MNCs management also have their way of telling a story.

The most pressing problem facing Thai unionists is dismissal:

- CAL workers are dismissed when they join the unions while the unions have difficulty to protect them.

- Permanent workers are dismissed and they are replaced by CAL workers. Under this situation, permanent workers are also suppressed and fear to make demands just like CAL workers.

What tools and strategies have proved particularly successful in your work on CAL so far?

• Vision of union activists: when union activists have deep understanding on CAL problem and are able to analyse the situations and translate that into union policy which can be implemented in the short and long term 
• Education: education on CAL problem must be organized for all workers both permanent and CAL workers, union members and non union members as well as family members of workers
• Participation of union members when it comes to CAL struggle
• Participation of workers and their family members in supporting the struggle
• Consistency and frequency of CAL related activities such as education, joint activities of CAL and permanent workers and communication work
• Solidarity support from others: labour organizations, students’ organizations, ordinary people
• International Solidarity work: ICEM and affiliates in many countries
• Media reports on union movement activities and struggles on CAL

 

Do you think your work would benefit from cooperation with unions from other countries?

Based on our experience, all the 8 elements (above) are essential to successful union struggles on CAL issue. Cooperation and solidarity with unions from other countries are one of the key elements. International solidarity has played an important role in the struggles of Thai union movement. Without international solidarity, many struggles would have been failed. One concrete example of international solidarity work is communication. Thai unions would not have the channel to communicate with the employers or MNC headquarters without the support from the ICEM. Not only we have little knowledge about our employer in foreign countries, our attempt to communicate with the principal employer is also blocked. Moreover, Thailand is a small country and hardly gets attention from the MNC headquarters when it comes to workers’ grievances.

The support from trade union movement in other countries therefore becomes very important. Based on our experiences, solidarity work by ICEM and affiliated unions in other countries was impressive. Not only solidarity work helps us in our struggles but also gives us a high spirit to continue. During the intense struggles, even short solidarity messages that came in were very meaningful for us.