Article 44 to be used to reduce impact of foreign labour law

[webfact]

Article 44 to be used to reduce impact of foreign labour law
By Nattapat Promkaew
The Nation

 

 

BANGKOK: -- The National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) will use an Article 44 order to delay enforcement and ease the impact of four articles in the controversial foreign labour law.

 

The decision was reached during the NCPO meeting on Tuesday at Government House. According to General Chalermchai Sittisart, the articles to be delayed are 101, 102, 119 and 122.

 

The articles allow for heavy fines of up to Bt800,000 per worker and imprisonment if employers are found to have hired illegal foreign workers.

 

The NCPO Spokesperson Colonel Winthai Suvaree said that the NCPO agreed to issue “temporary measures” to delay the law so as to leave time for employers and foreign workers to adjust themselves accordingly.

 

He said the measures will also allow workers to travel to their home countries to adjust their documents to correspond with the new law. 

 

The Labour Ministry, the Foreign Ministry, the Interior Ministry and police are in charge of the supporting measure, he said.

 

Prime Minister General Prayut Chan-o-cha ordered Chalermchai and police chief General Chakthip Chaijinda to look out for corruption involving officials working on foreign labour management, including those overseeing checkpoints in Tak’s Mae Sot district, as requested by the Myawaddy governor in Myanmar, the spokesman added.

 

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/news/breakingnews/30319864

 

-- © Copyright The Nation 2017-07-04

[Somtamnication]

LOL. So create a new draconian law, and stop enforcing it with Article 44. Gotta love this country!

[JoePai]

Boss Hog will get on well with Dump when they meet - more back flips than an Olympic diver

[Cadbury]

The tentacles of Article 44 continue to spread like a disease to every corner of the nation. This time however it is a Reverse Article 44 to try to undo the impetuous and imprudent judgement of his senior officers. Seems like Prayut and his high ranking officers don't have the ability to march in a straight line let alone know where they are going.

[clockman]

The blind leading the blind!

[rkidlad]

I see Mr. 44 is blaming this on 'foreign' pressure. 

 

Amazing the lengths people will go to to never accept responsibility. 

[55Jay]

Was this new law announced and advertised in the Gazette for the required period of time so that companies/employers knew what was coming?   

 

 

[mercman24]

bring in good old 44 again . oh no, not loss of face again, got no face left, started for me when the cops were congratulated on a job well done , in the two young brits murders.

[baboon]

Why not just withdraw the wretched 'law' and start again from scratch, rather than trying to fit a square peg in a round hole? All the junta chief will do with the use of article 44 is extend the uncertainty, surely?  

[YetAnother]

what idiocy; new bad law and an immediate override; leaders here do not know what they are doing

[snoop1130]

Foreign-labour law enforcement now delayed six months

By The Nation

 

 

Authorities now say they will give 180-day grace period to employers and migrant workers who need time to adjust themselves to the new foreign-labour law.

 

Four articles of the Royal Decree on Foreign Labour Management have been suspended until the end of the year. 

 

Royal Thai Army’s chief General Chalermchai Sittisart said on Tuesday that the four articles that prescribed harsh punishments against offending employers and workers would take effect from January 1, 2018 instead.

 

These four articles are:

 

Article 101 that prescribes up to five-years imprisonment and/or a fine of up to Bt100,000 to a foreigner working without a permit or outside their designated location.

 

Article 102 that prescribes a fine from Bt400,000 to Bt800,000 for employers per illegal worker.

 

Article 119 that prescribes a fine from Bt20,000 to Bt100,000 for foreign workers who fail to notify the registrar of their work. 

 

Article 122 that prescribes a fine from Bt400,000 to Bt800,000 for an employer hiring a foreign worker who is registered as an employee of another entity or person. 

 

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/news/national/30319877

 

-- © Copyright The Nation 2017-7-4

[NCC1701A]

" Article 101 that prescribes up to five-years imprisonment and/or a fine of up to Bt100,000 to a foreigner working without a permit or outside their designated location."

 

I have a retirement extension of stay. Can I work in the front yard of my house without now going to jail for five years?

 

I ask this because I already know no one really knows FOR SURE the answer to this question. And now there is a 100,000 bounty on my Farang head.

 

[KIWIBATCH]

The only reason they have backtracked on this ...is because of the mass exodus of workers leaving Thailand.

I would hazard a guess and say that many Thai companies are suffering and have complained as a result of not having sufficient workers to complete projects/work in progress.

[Pib]

Law is no longer needed in Thailand since Article 44 is available (and frequently used).

[yellowboat]

2 hours ago, snoop1130 said:

Article 101 that prescribes up to five-years imprisonment and/or a fine of up to Bt100,000 to a foreigner working outside their designated location.

Pretty harsh for punishment for such a small error of judgment. 

[dcpo]

1 hour ago, yellowboat said:

Pretty harsh for punishment for such a small error of judgment. 

I work for a big government university. According to this law I'm liable for up to 5 years when I teach a class at a satellite campus. Actually, the law is so vague about what constitutes 'work' that I'm probably technically liable every time I have a work related idea on the BTS. One thing I've learned after a few years here is that Thai administrators really love making rules that are too strict to actually enforce. It's like the people who make them live in a completely different country to the rest of us. But it happens at every level, from central government down.   

[hotchilli]

Construction companies, hotels & fisheries must be really sweating, think of all those condos which will now not be completed, all those fishing boats tied up in dock without a slave crew to man them, hotel beds not going to be made-up in the mornings.

Guess the lazy Thais will have to get off their asses & get dirty for a change, instead of paying a pittance to migrant workers to do all the cr@p jobs.

What amazes me though is the so called mass exodus of un-documented workers who've up to now been allowed to stay in the country.

How did they get in past immigration, why have they been allowed to stay for so long, why have they not been checked at employment sites?

Rhetorical question i know, it's served the country & economy for so long that many "blind eyes" have been turned.

But now it's time to clean up their act in light of international pressure to stop being a slave nation to Asian migrants.

Been a long time coming !

[Happyman58]

11 hours ago, KIWIBATCH said:

The only reason they have backtracked on this ...is because of the mass exodus of workers leaving Thailand.

I would hazard a guess and say that many Thai companies are suffering and have complained as a result of not having sufficient workers to complete projects/work in progress.

Kiwi Batch you hit the nail right on the head I would say lots of companies have been on the phone to the PM saying hey you taking our workers We cannot finish the jobs we started Keep that up and u you will stop receiving brown envelops Pm would of asked what about Thai workers I am sure the company boss on the phone would of been in stiches laughing What Thai workers? They are walking around the streets doing nothing But one thing about this law It is not silly  completely  I guess they are trying to get these permits in to make sure these workers get paid right Your hear they get 200 Baht per day awful  In theory you like to think that is what they are trying achieve is to help this workers and stop companies exploiting them. But knowing this government that would not be true They be looking at how much money they can make out of this

[Happyman58]

51 minutes ago, hotchilli said:

Construction companies, hotels & fisheries must be really sweating, think of all those condos which will now not be completed, all those fishing boats tied up in dock without a slave crew to man them, hotel beds not going to be made-up in the mornings.

Guess the lazy Thais will have to get off their asses & get dirty for a change, instead of paying a pittance to migrant workers to do all the cr@p jobs.

What amazes me though is the so called mass exodus of un-documented workers who've up to now been allowed to stay in the country.

How did they get in past immigration, why have they been allowed to stay for so long, why have they not been checked at employment sites?

Rhetorical question i know, it's served the country & economy for so long that many "blind eyes" have been turned.

But now it's time to clean up their act in light of international pressure to stop being a slave nation to Asian migrants.

Been a long time coming !

For once Hot u are so right  Its time for Thailand to start using there own labour and stop relying on foreign workers to do there so call dirty jobs Any chance of that happening you think?

[Time Traveller]

Wow , I couldn't believe what I'm reading here. I thought this news story was a joke. But if true then this "Law" has now passed the 2 criteria needed to be a really really really dumba$$ stupid retarded law. It could quite possibly be the stupidest thing that ever pretended to be a law. 

 Because when 

1. The government says not to enforce the new law fully and that they'll use executive order - at will whenever they feel like it - against the law, AND

2. The government are not really sure about it so they're going to wait 6 months before it comes into effect (like this Law is sooooo so important, that they are going to let people keep breaking it for the next 6 months? Well probably it's not such an important law)

 

Really have to wonder did adults actually write this legislation or was it 3rd graders ?  

But don't worry the laws will all change next week, and then again the week after that, and then the week after...and so on.....  

Edited July 5, 2017 by Time Traveller