Page 24 - สถานการณ์การละเมิดสิทธิแรงงานและบทเรียนหกปีของคณะอนุกรรมการสิทธิแรงงานในคณะกรรมการสิทธิมนุษยชนแห่งชาติ (กสม.)

aiming to benefit from gaps or limitation of the laws, employers showed no compromise in allowing union
organization to function in their workplaces and expressed clearly that they did not want their workers to
participate in any kind of union activities.
Laws and official practices – the study found that there were many laws concerning labor but
lack integrated implementation. Some acts or some sections were not in line with the constitution and
international rules, such as Labor Relations Act, B.E. 2518 prohibits workers of non-Thai nationality to
form a union or be it officials, Labor Ministerial Code No. 10 (B.E. 2541) issued in accordance with Labor
Protection Act, B.E. 2541 failed to cover off-shore marine fishery business, while the Social Security Act,
B.E. 2533 and Workmen’s Compensation Fund Act exclude workers in many business from enforcement
such as household work and agricultural work.
Further to the above mentioned, there are many announcements issued by provincial administration
which as a whole severely violate of labor rights, for instance, Phuket Provincial Announcement on
Management of Alien Workers Control dated 19 December 2006 is one of them.
Officers in charge of labor laws were to be narrow minded and held accountable to many claims,
some to be underlined included law interpretation was not made in line with the mandate of the law,
lack proactive and efficient performance i.e. some social security officers blamed workers who launched
complaints to various agencies to seek for fair treatment that such activities would lead to unnecessary
problem tackling, officers gave suggestion to workers to resign in order to receive social security right
without the awareness of losing their rights provided in other respective laws. Some social security officers
collected evidence on the shortage of money paid by workmen compensation fund by mainly judging from
documents and witnesses only from those submitted by the employers. As a mechanism at appeal level,
Workmen Compensation Fund Committee lacked proper and efficient process in fact collecting which
caused the missing of examination role or the screening of primary consideration ruled by lower rank
officers.
Labor inspector officers asked workers in dispute case to receive financial assistance from their
employers in the arbitration process without being aware of workers’ job security and rights to association
and bargain collectively. In some cases, the tripartite Labor Relations Committee asked the workers who
involved in unfair labor practice to receive severance pay instead of asking the management to reinstate
workers into their respective jobs. Many other cases also showed that some officers did not assist workers
to get access to juridical process with equality and just.
Policemen and military personnel were seen involved in some cases where violation of labor rights
took place such as they created pressure on workers to resign otherwise criminal charge would be filed
against them, body check for drug substance, proof by applying lying tester machine, and spy on union
leaders.
On policy-wise dimension – there is no clear policy to the changing employment environments,
no any efficient measure for labor protection. Application in juridical process was seen to emphasize on
problem solution without administrative or proactive measure. There was no firm policy which would
lead to concrete solution of problem to protect human rights on labor. There was no response to demands
to improve labor problems concerning state policy and laws submitted by civic organization network,
particularly the draft of laws for workers in informal and general sector include labor protection, social
security, labor relations, and safety, Occupational and environment at workplace.
3. Strategy of Sub-committee on Labor Rights in its six year period.
Management framework of Sub-committee on Labor Rights covered human rights, violation of
laws and unfair practice on labor but the NHRC had no power to examine if the complaint case was in court
proceedings. There was no mechanism to manage the case as entertained by the court to enforce the law.
As for the case in which state official was involved as violator, there were plenty of obstacles or limitations

๒๔ สถานการณ์การละเมิดสิทธิแรงงาน

Master 2 anu .indd 24 7/28/08 8:41:34 PM