Thai govt urged to ease crisis over migrants

[webfact]

Govt urged to ease crisis over migrants
By The Nation

 

 

Warning labour shortage as millions of migrants flee to home countries

 

BANGKOK: -- A LABOUR rights advocacy group has urged the government to adopt additional measures to help legalise an estimated 2 million migrant workers in Thailand in the wake of the new foreign labour law.

 

Sompong Srakaew, director of the Labour Rights Promotion Network, said migrant workers had valid passports but their jobs did not correspond to those specified in their work permits, or they had switched to new employers, and they should be helped to comply with the new law. Thailand has a total of about 5 million migrant workers, but only 1.3 million have proper documents and fully meet the new legal requirements. The rest include those who have valid passports but have already changed jobs or employers, as well as those who do not have any documents but work illegally in Thailand.

 

Sompong said he would discuss the issue with the Ministry of Labour on Wednesday and urge the government to introduce additional measures to help those who already had some kind of document to work in the Kingdom.

 

Some migrant workers were worried that they would be arrested, even though they do have documents, Sompong said. In many cases, labour recruitment agencies or employers take away workers’ documents, so it was not possible to verify the identity of work permit holders against their actual jobs. In addition, many factories do not want to hire migrant workers directly, so they turn to labour subcontractors who may not be transparent in terms of meeting legal requirements.

 

“If the government does not take precautionary measures, the country will face a labour crisis again similar to what happened back in 2014. The number of migrant workers with passports or pink-coloured cards is estimated to be 2.6 million. The rest are regarded as underground migrant workers, and their exact number is not known. “A new crisis will hit every sector of the Thai economy. For example, major construction projects will be halted since most labourers are migrants hired via subcontractors,” Sompong said.

 

Even though enforcement of the new foreign labour law was suspended for a 120-day period starting on June 23, tens of thousands of migrant workers from Cambodia and Myanmar have left the country due to the heavy penalties stipulated in the law. In Tak province bordering Myanmar, more than 30,000 migrant workers have already returned to their home country over the past three days, while several thousands of Cambodians have also left.

 

According to labour rights advocacy groups, there should be additional measures to complement the new labour law. The first measure would be to require all migrant workers to keep their own passports and work permits. Second, they should be allowed to change jobs or employers legally. Third, the government should hire private contractors to do registration work for a faster service, instead of using its budget on law enforcement. Fourth, the expenses for proper documents and registration should be lowered from the current Bt20,000 to Bt30,000 per person.

 

Meanwhile, Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s foreign minister, has told supporters she would negotiate with the Thai government to help solve problems resulting from the new foreign labour law because thousands of Myanmar migrant workers had lost their jobs.

 

In a related development, immigration authorities near the Thai-Cambodian border have stepped up their inspections of Cambodians wanting to enter Thailand to tackle human trafficking problems in which undocumented migrants are abused by criminal networks. However, Surawud Wongsamran, director of Sa Kaew province’s chamber of commerce, said the new foreign labour law had hit logistics and other businesses, especially small and medium enterprises and agriculture.

 

Meanwhile, the national police chief has ordered police nationwide not to take bribes from illegal workers and their employers or risk stiff penalties.

 

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/news/national/30319720

 

-- © Copyright The Nation 2017-07-03

[Samui Bodoh]

This is another case where Thailand is hurting itself by making a bad law.

 

In enacting a harsh law, coupled with much more severe penalties, it is virtually guaranteed that it will lead to problems. The workers/migrants are simply unable to comply with it in a reasonable manner. It is inevitable that there will be people who can't comply, so they will either be arrested, forced further underground (and thus more vulnerable) or they will leave and cause disruption to where ever they were employed before.

 

This is an "own goal".

[yellowboat]

Malaysia had the exact same issue last year with the same number of migrants.  The difference it seems is that they gave everyone enough time to comply.   

[debate101]

Ah yes, let's make migrant workers' lives even more hellish through poorly conceived changes to the law to "protect them" from traffickers rather than go after the people who traffic them. In Thailand, every problem stemming from abuse of power is the victim's fault--particularly when the victim is not Thai.

Edited July 2, 2017 by debate101

[edwinchester]

Two major foreign labour crises in the last three years under the same Govt.

Speaks volumes as to their competency.

[Bluespunk]

This new legislation has been nothing but an absolute debacle. 

 

Compounding the fact that it was poorly  thought through in the first place, has been the utter confusion surrounding its implementation. 

[mikebell]

3 hours ago, webfact said:

Fourth, the expenses for proper documents and registration should be lowered from the current Bt20,000 to Bt30,000 per person.

Thai logic!

[alant]

3 hours ago, webfact said:

Meanwhile, the national police chief has ordered police nationwide not to take bribes from illegal workers and their employers or risk stiff penalties.

[robblok]

the expenses for proper documents and registration should be lowered from the current Bt20,000 to Bt30,000 per person.

 

That is quite a lot of money to get registrated.

 

[alant]

1 hour ago, Bluespunk said:

This new legislation has been nothing but an absolute debacle. 

 

Compounding the fact that it was poorly  thought through in the first place, has been the utter confusion surrounding its implementation. 

But it must not be seen to lose face so no matter how damaging and ill conceived the legislation will remain enforced of not...

[ChrisY1]

More proof that Thailand is managed by fools!

[Bob12345]

This is such a "Thai" approach: first make new laws only to find out it brings a lot of unforeseen (but foreseable) problems.

Maybe stop using Article 44 and do some due diligence before implementing a new rule or law.

 

A competent government will work on a problem from both sides at the same time:

- instead of just introducing harsh laws on hurting stray dogs they would, at the same time, round up all stray dogs

- instead of just starting to monitor seatbelt usage in the back seats of pickups they would, at the same time, help people get seatbealts on the backseats

- instead of clamping down on street food sellers they would, at the same time, come with alternative spots and jobs for people employed as street food sellers

- instead of just increasing the penalty on illegal work they would, at the same time, introduce a quick shortcut procedure to supply current illegal workers with the correct papers

 

Maybe this is news for a military government, but a combination of a carrot and a stick works better than just the stick.

[natway09]

Industry will suffer,,,,, all of a sudden the "Boss" will wonder why the Government coffers are not as full as they should be

No money for subs &  high speed toys

[stephen tracy]

11 hours ago, Bluespunk said:

This new legislation has been nothing but an absolute debacle. 

 

Compounding the fact that it was poorly  thought through in the first place, has been the utter confusion surrounding its implementation. 

Thinking things through isn't exactly Prayuth's strong point.