Factory Life in Northern Thailand
Migrant Women in the Manufacturing Industry
What is it like to work in a factory in the north of Thailand and live in a nearby dormitory?
Thailand has become a much wealthier country in the last 40 years, although there are still many millions of poor people. The backbone of the economic growth that has taken place has been formed by manufacturing, especially of clothes, textiles, shoes and other consumer goods. This kind of manufacturing is not very complex, but it does mean people have to work hard for many hours together and to be willing to obey orders. When using swing machines and similar equipment, a degree of manual dexterity is required. Factory owners have mostly concluded from these requirements that it is better to hire women to work in the factories. The result has been that numerous factories, firstly located in Bangkok but subsequently all across the Kingdom, have been crewed by teams of women, usually young women, who have moved from their provincial, farming homes in order to obtain a better life and more income.
Most women factory workers (and men also show a similar pattern) work as many hours as possible. Thailand permits a 48-hour working week but it is possible to work beyond this limit, since overtime is considered be organized on a voluntary basis between employers and employees. Thailand has fewer than 10 days paid holidays, although there is a range of other possibilities for holidays (e.g. military service leave, sickness leave, maternity leave) which are provided on a more or less generous basis by employers on a case by case basis. Labour unions are weak and are forbidden from extending beyond a single workplace. The result is that workers generally establish objectives of working for a fixed period of time, during which they will save and remit as much money as possible before moving on to a new phase in their lives.
Migrant workers live in dormitories close to the workplace. Their interaction with local people is limited and there are many examples of discrimination and bias. Village women who provide dormitory space or food retail services, for example, are often described as calling the women workers ‘loose’ and ‘sexually degenerate,’ because they wear blouses without sleeves and may have boyfriends or cohabit without being married. Since it is often the case that women greatly exceed men in workplaces and dormitory accommodation, there is considerable scope for jealousy and heartbreak and at least some of the men involved have developed reputations for philandering and being disloyal. Thailand, like other countries in mainland Southeast Asia, has a powerful double standard in terms of sexual behaviour between men and women.
