(2010-2012)

The Thailand Country Study is being carried out by Homenet Thailand. Homenet Thailand has identified home workers, domestic workers and farmers in contract farming system as the occupational groups for the country study.

Homeworkers

After the International Labour Organization (ILO) has adopted the protection standard of homeworkers in ILO Convention No 177 and ILO Recommendation 184 in year 1995, the Homenet Thailand has been campaigning with the Thai government to ratify this ILO convention. Although Thai Government has not ratified ILC 177, the Ministry of Labour has enacted the Ministerial Regulation on Protection of Homeworkers B.E.2547 (A.D.2004) under the Labor Protection Act B.E.2541 (A.D.1998) Some of the highlights of the Regulation are prohibition of employment of a child under 15 years old, employment contract is needed, prohibited giving out hazard work to homeworkers, prohibited to do any wage discrimination between male and female workers.

However, this ministerial regulation has several limitations of implementation as the enactment does not resolve some of the issues faced by the workers e.g. unfair wages, inability to access social security systems, etc.   HomeNet Thailand with the support of partners has carried out continuous campaigns for the Ministry of Labour to enact the Homeworkers Protection bill, in order to protect the fundamental rights at work of workers. Eventually, in September 29th, 2010 Thai parliament agreed on the homeworkers protection enactment, under the Homeworkers Protection Act B.E. 2553 (A.D. 2010) The law will come into effect from May 2011. The challenge now is to ensure effective enforcement, which requires regular follow up, support and close work with the Ministry of Labour.

Domestic Workers

Domestic work is one of the occupations that is partly covered by the Labor Protection Act B.E.2541 (A.D. 1998). Only few working conditions is protected by this regulation e.g. domestic workers should receive payment in kind of Thai Baht or allowed to have 6 day-off each year. But other significant working conditions not enforced under this Ministerial Regulation are minimum wages, weekly day off, working time, minimum age of employment, and access to social security system.   

In 2009, as a part of the campaign in establishing of ILO standards for protection of domestic workers, Homenet Thailand coordinated with the Foundation for Child Development, Foundation for Women, Workers’ Union, and ILO Sub-regional Office for East Asia in Thailand to  organize  domestic workers in Thailand and established the “Thai Domestic Workers Network”. The network took part in the advocacy and lobbied for the Ministerial Regulation on Domestic Workers Protection.  The “Thai Domestic Workers Network” and partners agreed to take the opportunity that International Labour Conference will be held in 2011 to consider the content of ILO Convention and Recommendation to protect domestic workers as an advocacy tool and push forward for Ministerial Regulation on Domestic Workers Protection.

Contract Farmers

Thailand is a large agricultural product exporting country. In order to maintain export market share, the agricultural industry developed a production standard system in which the quantity and quality of the product can be controlled, thus minimizing the production cost and risk as well. Based on this idea, the large companies evolved a production system called “Contract Faming”. The company thrust the risk of business and investment upon the farmers, avoids responsibility under labour law and created complex production and marketing systems binding the farmers in exploitative employment arrangements.    

Under the contract farming system, a farmer have to buy all production factors and technology from the company and can only sell back products to the company under specific conditions. The contract farmers are not registered and they caretakers or workers in their own land. The farmers have no legal protection even though there are disadvantages and they shoulder the risk of production and occupational health and safety issues. Several contract farmers are overwhelmed by debt and have to sell their own land. Likewise a large number of farmers face health problem, some even resulting in death.

Over the years, the efforts of the academicians and non-government organizations as well as the failure contact farmers for protection policy and law on “Contract Farming System” has yielded little.  The response from Ministry of Labour, Ministry of Agriculture, and agricultural industrial companies is far from satisfactory.  Based on advocacy experiences on Homeworker Protection Act, Homenet Thailand plans to develop policy framework and measures to provide social and legal protection to contract farmers and developing a process which will emphasize on farmer participation and enable legal empowerment of contact farmer organizations.