Migrant workers left in a mess

[webfact]

EDITORIAL

Migrant workers left in a mess

By The Nation

 

More foolishness as the Labour Minister suggests foreigners are stealing jobs from Thais and has hundreds rounded up 

 

Thailand badly needs a more systematic and realistic plan to deal with migrant workers. For lack of one, racism, misplaced nationalism and laws carrying tough penalties are just making matters worse.

 

The government has eased up on enforcing a problematic law while the registration and nationality verification of migrant workers continues through June. Meanwhile, though, workers in Bangkok, Samut Sakhon, Phuket, Chon Buri and other provinces have lately been subjected to a 1979 law, freshly enforced by Labour Minister Adul Saengsingkaew, that bars foreigners from 39 specific professions. By law, foreigners can’t farm, trade, style or cut hair, or be tour guides, craftsmen, engineers or architects. 

 

The result has been the arrest of more than 1,600 migrants, mostly from Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos, who were working in the retail and service sectors. Many of them were street vendors or working in restaurants. If convicted, they could be jailed for five years, fined up to Bt100,000, or both.

The minister’s move seems likely to make it more difficult for the government to manage migrant workers. Thailand already has too many conflicting laws and uneven enforcement of them. The migrants working in Thailand come up against these shortcomings all the time. 

 

In recent decades, some two million documented workers from neighbouring counties have been legally allowed into just unskilled labour and housekeeping. In fact, they work in many of the 39 categories of jobs from which they’re legally prohibited. The Labour Ministry is being purely nationalistic with its crackdown, saying the foreign workers are usurping jobs that Thais could be doing. Some media reports have gone along with this incorrect line of thinking, characterising the migrants as an invading army that would turn Thais into their lackeys.

 

The issue is far too complex to be exploited so roughly. What’s needed, rather than xenophobia, is a relevant, comprehensive plan of action. There are several good reasons for this.

 

First, most Thais are educated enough – their society advanced enough economically – that they have little problem finding jobs, and not necessarily in the 39 fields from which foreigners are barred, many of which they would consider too menial.

 

Second, there have been calls for the 1979 law to be amended to match current circumstances. It no longer makes sense to reserve many of these professions for Thais when they’d rather not pursue them. And Thailand, after all, has been allowing foreigners to do this work for a long time. In the capital and many provinces, labouring in the fresh food markets has largely been the migrants’ turf.

 

Third, the government was last year forced to consider changes to new legislation governing migrant workers when the tough penalties it carried sent thousands of foreign labourers into a panic and infuriated their employers. Enforcement of that law has been delayed until the end of June, owing to the slow worker-registration process. When enforcement does begin, anyone employing unregistered migrants could be fined up to Bt800,000 per worker. Among the alterations being mulled is modernising the list of jobs from which foreigners are banned.

 

Unrealistic and obsolete laws are not just harmful. They are also prone to abuse by officials acting in their own interest. The 1979 law theoretically allows officials to walk into any fresh market and demand bribes from migrant vendors and traders. Arresting them in accordance with the law creates a separate problem, since detention space is short, so it’s easier to demand regular payoffs – or ignore the violations.

 

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/detail/opinion/30337103

 

-- © Copyright The Nation 2018-01-25

[yellowboat]

1 hour ago, webfact said:

Unrealistic and obsolete

Sums it all up and can be applied to most Thai government institutions. 

[Cadbury]

The Labour Ministry seems to be trying hard to fight off a challenge by the Education Ministry to see which is the most incompetent of all ministries in Thailand.

The monumental bungle over the registration of foreign workers should go down as one of the best of the junta's stuff-ups for 2017. Prayut's embarrassment forced him to sack the minister over that issue and it looks like his replacement might suffer the same fate.

[SOTIRIOS]

...as for the organized elements that feed off of these lowest of the low workers ...with zero rights....

 

...charging them tens of thousands for 'employment services'.....

[Orton Rd]

Yet at the same time tens of thousands of Thais are 'stealing jobs' from the natives in Australia, Korea, Scandinavia, the middle east etc etc

[BEVUP]

16 minutes ago, Orton Rd said:

Yet at the same time tens of thousands of Thais are 'stealing jobs' from the natives in Australia, Korea, Scandinavia, the middle east etc etc

True & it's not only Thais (i know the feeling ), but at least Thailand restricts the job classifications.

Where as in my case Auss couldn't give a crap about it's Citz as they will let anyone take any sort of job leaving their own un/semi skilled work force in the gutter all on the old story of " Shortage of Workers "

 

 

[Srikcir]

8 hours ago, webfact said:

foreigners are stealing jobs from Thais

And yet according to government employment figures, Thailand is fully employed.

What jobs are being stolen?

[trainman34014]

When will these Ministerial Misfits realise Thai men don't want to work ?    I could round up more than a hundred working age men who don't work just biking around four local Village's.  Much easier for them to sit drinking beer at 8am whilst the Wife earns more money for beer at the local market.

[Oziex1]

I find it upsetting how employers in all countries including my own,  are just falling over themselves to get hold of the cheap foreign labour.

They then have the audacity to claim some nationalistic pride, they care only for profit.

[blubb]

21 minutes ago, trainman34014 said:

When will these Ministerial Misfits realise Thai men don't want to work ?    I could round up more than a hundred working age men who don't work just biking around four local Village's.  Much easier for them to sit drinking beer at 8am whilst the Wife earns more money for beer at the local market.

isn't that fair enough ? 

[holy cow cm]

The Thai Yai are definitely getting a little out of control and stepping on Thai toes in places that should be reserved for Thai only.. Say like food carts, canteen booths and stuff. If I can't do it, they should not be allowed as well. Unless it is I have the wrong skin color and am subjected to the double double standard. One example is in Chiang Mai. The Thai Yai woman is actually a bit famous in a sense. She wears a cowboy hat and sells carved pork over rice with a sauce. She makes hand over fist at the Chang Peuack food market, but if I was to do that I would be tossed in the slammer and deported. So yes, the system needs to be cleaned up. 

[Odysseus123]

A selfish nation which has gone rogue in a monumental way.Squealing whenever they get caught out and blaming everybody else for their crass ineptitude.

[White Christmas13]

7 hours ago, Srikcir said:

And yet according to government employment figures, Thailand is fully employed.

What jobs are being stolen?

Thailand has no unemployment

[Srikcir]

23 minutes ago, White Christmas13 said:

Thailand has no unemployment

That is the same as being "fully employed."

But thanks for the agreement.

[wakeupplease]

Remember when everyone went home and the country was on the verge of shutdown. Truth is those at the top fear any education and they would be out of a job, because lets face it they are as thick as S>>>

 

craftsmen, engineers or architects, yes they need a load of these.

 

Up their own ass springs to mind.

[White Christmas13]

Yes

Thanks for your comment, Thailand hasn't got a clue about unemployment there is no

record of unemployment people in there eighties or beyond that  still go and sell some

thing on the street (like bananas and so on) If you haven't worked for the government

there is no pension no safety guard or what ever at least in western society you have some.

I am glad  I went back to my home country even so many farangs complain about the country

they were born, they got no idea I went back after many years in Thailand and I have got

every thing to live on but I will get bombarded with all the expats in Thailand