Volunteer Work Without A Work Permit

[khaowong1]

Like one of the posters said, it depends on whom your volunteering with. If it's some high muckety muck, no problems, on your own, yes, for sure someone is probably going to complain to the authorities. Say for example, you were going to do a lecture or two at the Chula univ. presidents invitation, no problems for sure. Or some govt. fairly highly placed individual asked your opinion on some piece of legal document in accordance with us laws, for sure, no problems. otherwise. skip it.,

[harrry]

Volunteering without a work permit is a risk which I for one am not willing to take.

I must say I was impressed by the website for the strong will seeds which is the first group I have seen putting understandable and detailed balance sheets on the web.

[lopburi3]

Flame and reply removed.

[Richard4849]

Like one of the posters said, it depends on whom your volunteering with. If it's some high muckety muck, no problems, on your own, yes, for sure someone is probably going to complain to the authorities. Say for example, you were going to do a lecture or two at the Chula univ. presidents invitation, no problems for sure. Or some govt. fairly highly placed individual asked your opinion on some piece of legal document in accordance with us laws, for sure, no problems. otherwise. skip it.,

You're not even safe working for a "high muckety muck", because as high as they may be there is always some muckety muck who's higher -- and who might not approve of your efforts.

[Mario2008]

One other problem is that while searching for volunteers without a work permit will not have a high priority, if a problem arises questions can be asked. For instance if you help out at a school and a child under your supervision is injured, questions can be asked about the supervision and one of the questions can be "do you have a work permit?".

[Rhys]

DUDE esquire...you had your fun in land of smile...would stay away.. you know (no) better than to ask what is the law in Thailand.

Who ever you crossed may not forget you..why give them a chance? Best to move on down the trail.

Volunteer "Legal"

:jap: English.. really...

Edited April 26, 2011 by Rhys

[Arkady]

Apparently the honorary Thai consulate in Hull lists volunteer work as grounds for issuing a non-immigrant visa. It is not clear from the website whether the consulate expects customers who obtain a non-immigrant visa to apply for a work permit on arrival in Thailand or just wing it.

Anyone planning to work illegally in Thailand should have a contingency fund available in case of emergency. The rule works likes this, something like budget airlines. Pay early, pay less. If the arresting officers can be bought off on the spot, they can just report that they found nothing and close the case. Once you have been taken "downtown", many more hands are out, including more senior ones with more expensive lifestyles to maintain. Once you have been booked, the price goes up again until you get to the point of no return and there is no seat available at any price.

At a guess I would say that most farangs arrested for working without work permits are fingered due to a dispute between a Thai whom they have probably never even met or heard of and their Thai employee. Foreigners are an easy target and it is often much easier and safer to cause the employer trouble by going after his illegal staff than attacking him directly. Unfortunately the illegal foreign workers suffer much more than the employer. Often the complainants are disgruntled Thai employees or former employees of the same employer. Many Thai workers take it personally when rebuked or fired for incompetence or theft and

feel under an obligation to take revenge on their employer, often resulting even in murder. The call to Immigration or the Labour Ministry is regarded as only mild retaliation for a lose of face.

[Arkady]

The tourist police are NOT violating work permit laws....any of the so-called arm chair lawyers consider that the Thai INS cleared this with the Thai tourist police already (duh). TiT doesn't always apply.....notice they seem pretty good at catching jewelry thieves too.

It is not a case of whether the Tourist Police in Bangkok and various tourist resorts have cleared the issue of foreign volunteers not needing WPs with the Immigration Bureau or not. The problem is that there is no provision in the 2008 Working of Aliens Act that can be used to allow tourist police volunteers to work without work permits. Therefore any accommodation the Tourist Police might have made with Immigration (and/or the Labour Ministry) would be illegal and could not stand up to a legal challenge. The police are relying on the fact that they, including Immigration which is also a police division, are the enforcers of the law, and therefore feel entitled to violate it at will.

Let's just wait and see what happens when there is a problem with tourist police volunteers, e.g. one murders some one or gets YouTubed doing something considered an offence to public morals. The volunteers in Pattaya managed somehow to avoid a major scandal when one their former colleagues was convicted of heroin pedaling. Next time they might not be so lucky and questions may be raised by politicians about their legal status. Until then they will continue to enjoy the protection of their powerful patrons.

Did you read the Thai Alien Labour Act? It says that exceptions can be made, by Royal Decree. I'm curious if someone can point to such Decree.

I think not, since a Royal Decree implies an amendment made by Parliament that would involve another Working of Aliens Act to amend the 2008 Act. Otherwise the law would say the exceptions can be made through ministerial regulations. These could be issued by the Labour Ministry and promulgated through publication in the Royal Gazette without Act of Parliament. Anyway I am not aware of any Royal Decree or ministerial regulations that exempt tourist police volunteers from having work permits.

Edited April 26, 2011 by Arkady

[Arkady]

What about if you pay to do volunteer work? Still illegal? Anyone knows? No guessing please.

No need to guess on this one. There is no provision in the Working of Aliens that permits foreigners to work without work permits on the grounds that they have paid for their employment. There are already some travel agents putting together "volunteer tours" for those willing to pay to do volunteer work. Perhaps the risk of being arrested and spending the rest of their holiday learning how to eat cockroaches and sleep standing up in the Suan Plu Immigration prison is supposed to add a frisson of excitement and adventure to their holidays!

[sinbin]

You only have to go on the Farming Forum to see how many work here without a 'work permit'. Every westerner seems to be at it in the rural areas.

[Richard4849]

A different topic entirely, but I wonder about the status of the foreign "volunteers" at the Tiger Temple in Kanchanaburi.

If there is any place that needs to be shut down, it's that one.

[jazzbo]

One reason that those pay-to-volunteer operations might not have had their conscriptees eating cockroaches is that part of the cost to volunteer goes to paying-off the proper local personages ... else I'm sure the gentleman would have posted regarding specific examples of such and the respective SuanPlu mug shots.

[Richard4849]

As anyone who has lived here long enough, there is no such thing as paying off the "local personages" -- at least not insofar as it makes you immune.

Unless you are paying off EVERY police unit, Ministry cadre, politician, or military personage -- not to mention journalist, blogger, etc. -- with the power to mess you up you are NEVER entirely safe when you intentionally break the law. NEVER.

I cannot tell you how many farangs I have met over the years who told me, "no worries, mate, I've got protection", who subsequently ended up in big, big trouble. When I hear someone say that these days, all I can do is laugh.

[jazzbo]

While I do not personally care much for the methods of the pay-to-volunteer organizations, they do provide a means for persons who would never otherwise travel to Thailand or elsewhere an opportunity to do something 'worthwhile' while on extended vacation rather than just lie on the beach ...

Many of them are well established and even NGOs in their home country and/or registered here in Thailand -- if you have any specific examples of THESE type organizations being summarily shut down and their 'volunteers' facing in big, big, trouble then you know more than most...

[Richard4849]

While I do not personally care much for the methods of the pay-to-volunteer organizations, they do provide a means for persons who would never otherwise travel to Thailand or elsewhere an opportunity to do something 'worthwhile' while on extended vacation rather than just lie on the beach ...

Many of them are well established and even NGOs in their home country and/or registered here in Thailand -- if you have any specific examples of THESE type organizations being summarily shut down and their 'volunteers' facing in big, big, trouble then you know more than most...

I know of none. But the knowledge that they are operating illegally and have the possibility of getting into big, big trouble (both the organization and the volunteers) is enough for most people. Who wants to be the first?

[jazzbo]

Fine ... at least you are honest ... and then there are others who wonder how the local xyz official gets to drive and might not want to lose his Mercedes.

The notion that some of these NGOs that have several hundred local Thai employees and make large local purchases of goods and services is going to get in trouble because the ex-girlfriend of the NGO bus driver goes to the local officials and says that the NGO has 2 or 3 farang on the premises is ridiculous... and was most likely well-known to the local officials beforehand.

Edited April 26, 2011 by jazzbo

[Arkady]

A different topic entirely, but I wonder about the status of the foreign "volunteers" at the Tiger Temple in Kanchanaburi.

If there is any place that needs to be shut down, it's that one.

I agree with you on that one. By all accounts and there are a few well informed articles about it on the Internet, it is a truly evil place that places money making above, wildlife and nature conservation, religious principles, honesty and plain basic human decency, not to mention being a serious mauling accident waiting to happen. The foreign volunteers are a good source of free labour as they are young and enthusiastic and speak the tourists' languages. Unfortunately for the temple some have not been as stupid as they looked and have documented their experiences on the internet, after figuring out what was really going there. It is a huge money spinner with very low costs that reinvests nothing in conservation and doubtless the local plods, provincial and local officials all have their snouts deeply into the trough. Since it is rather isolated and apparently under the control of the provincial mafia, I imagine it is relatively easy to keep out any over zealous Immigration or Labour Ministry officials, who are also paid handsomely not to notice all the illegal Burmese labour in the province. This is the idyllic countryside where a Kanchaburi policeman under the protection of well connected provincial mafia was able to hide out for five months after brutally murdering two young British tourists in a fit of lecherous drunken, rage until he and his sponsor thought he had constructed a cast iron defence. Perhaps he was actually making merit by working on the lucrative tiger parts business at the time.