The Participation of Thailand YCW in the World Day for Decent Work

On October 7 at 9 o’clock, lots of people arrived from everywhere at King Chulalongkorn Monument. They came to celebrate a wonderful day for all workers in the world: the “World Day for Decent Work”. That day is an opportunity to join in a united mobilization for change. Each country celebrates it in their own way. Sometimes the focus is on more decent working conditions, sometimes on demands regarding rights at the workplace. In Thailand the campaign aimed to pressure the government to sign ILO conventions 87 and 98 as soon as possible. Thailand is one of the few countries which haven't signed these conventions which are related to the protection of the right to organize and the right to collective bargaining.

In Thailand we are well aware of the consequences of the government's failure to sign the conventions. The Thai labor legislation itself has some provisions that are against the principles established in the conventions, i.e. the right to organize and to collective bargaining. Workers are not able to defend their interests. For instance, state enterprise workers cannot get together with private company workers to claim their rights. Or the workers in one workplace cannot put forward demands on behalf of workers in another workplace. In practice, those workers who form a union are always dismissed on legal grounds. And in the same connection, although the law provides for welfare for all (including for subcontracted workers), the problem of low pension and poor welfare quality is a reality in those workplaces without trade unions. Employers also tend to break this law. These are consequences of not signing the conventions. It is essential that trade unions and other workers can get together and fight for the interests of all workers. For the record, only 500,000 out of 35 million workers in the country are members of a union, i.e. only 1.4 percent, which is a very low number.