Safety net needed to protect vulnerable Thai workers

[Jonathan Fairfield]

 

Eyes on the seams, hands on the cloth, feet on the pedals, seamstresses sew a thousand pieces in an eight hour day and all on minimum wage.

 

That is life for tens of thousands of such workers across the country, as explained by Vipa Matchachat, a seamstress turned labour activist.

 

“When you only make ฿350- 500 a day, you can barely survive,” Vipa said. “This is especially true when you have to take care of your parents and/or children.”

 

One problem leads to another. When labourers cannot support their family on such low pay, they turn to loan sharks. Needless to say, the temporary cash inflow just makes everything worse in the end. The pay eventually goes to pay the interest and labourers have to work even harder, getting a second job, to try to make ends meet.

 

Full story: https://www.thaipbsworld.com/safety-net-needed-to-protect-vulnerable-thai-workers/

 

 

-- © Copyright Thai PBS 2021-05-02

 

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[ThailandRyan]

Just had an Aunt of the GF, who lives here in Thailand as well, call us and try to sell some of the land she owns in Myanmar in the family MooBan.  Between the coup there, the military attacks on the villages, the lack of food, and the spreading Covid cases, there is no work to be found and no one has money, ergo why they are trying to flee the country and find work. The migrant workers are suffering as well.  She is married to a Thai, who owned his own business, but now has had to close because of Covid.  A sad reality that there is no safety net for those that have been self employed and self sufficient until this virus shut the country.

10 minutes ago, Jonathan Fairfield said:

“When you only make ฿350- 500 a day, you can barely survive,” Vipa said. “This is especially true when you have to take care of your parents and/or children.”

All families are in a quandary, and this Government has done jack s...all to assist them.  They were trying to get to Phuket to find jobs in the tourism sector when tourism was set to kick back into gear in July, as I had mentioned in another OP, but alas that is now a no-go as well.  Desperate times for many.  We also found out the GF's mother, grandfather, and grandmother now have covid in Myanmar and the only hospital from their Karen village is a 2 hour drive away and is over full, and medicine is scarce.  Ugh...

[Tropicalevo]

1 hour ago, ThailandRyan said:

Between the coup there, the military attacks on the villages, the lack of food, and the spreading Covid cases, there is no work to be found and no one has money, ergo why they are trying to flee the country and find work.

Your post is totally correct.

The part that I find sad is that Thailand is treating the Burmese just as illegals crossing the border instead of treating them humanely as people fleeing a war zone.

 

[Bradmeister]

Support Labor activists and Unions.

 

SU SU KHRAP vida!!!