Trade (labour) unions have had a difficult history in Thailand - is there any hope for a more progressive future?
The latest round of factory closures in Thailand has been accompanied by street protests and demonstrations at government buildings. On one occasion, ten women who had lost their jobs stripped naked to show that they had nothing left with which to feed and take care of their families. This of course attracted some media attention but the overall picture is a depressing one. Not only is it depressing because of the volume of jobs being lost – after all, the loss of low labour cost competitiveness, squeezed by the high level of the Baht, has been obvious for some years – it is also depressing because of the confrontational nature of industrial relations in Thailand. Despite the best efforts of the Ministry of Labour and of the International Labour Organization’s (ILO) tripartite approach, employers still too often feel they can treat their employees with disdain. Carefully constructed compensation payments are casually tossed aside and the workers thrown out onto the streets without warning. Some employers do treat their staff better than this but the trend is not encouraging.
The political situation does not help. The junta, which seized power on September 19th, 2006, has maintained martial law in many parts of the country and union workers are among those, it is reported, to have been intimidated by the threat of officially sanctioned violence. If a general election is held at the end of this year or the beginning of the next, there is little prospect of things improving since the emerging political parties are coalescing on traditional, personality- and money-based politics which relegate ideology to at best secondary importance. There is little prospect of a party of any substance putting forth a manifesto supporting workers’ rights, especially since the newly passed constitution has as one of its principal aims the weakening of popular democracy and the strengthening of the old power elites in determining policies and the distribution of resources.
The 2006 Nobel Prize winner for economics, Professor Edmund Phelps, declared in his acceptance speech the need for all countries to maintain a vision of the ‘good life’ as a central part of what their governments hope to achieve. An important part of this is a strong economy and this requires workplaces in which workers are able to enjoy careers of challenge and personal fulfillment. Trades unions are an important component part of this economy, working within stable workplaces to mentor and advise younger or less experienced employees into more highly value adding activities. This would also have an impact on social cohesion which, in Thailand as much as elsewhere, is troubled by disaffected youth who might be helped by a friendly role model in a workplace that offers continuity and long-term purpose. That still seems far away.
