Page 353 - สถานการณ์การละเมิดสิทธิแรงงานและบทเรียนหกปีของคณะอนุกรรมการสิทธิแรงงานในคณะกรรมการสิทธิมนุษยชนแห่งชาติ (กสม.)

4. Analysis of causes of abuse, three aspects were considered in the study, namely employer, laws,
and official practices and state policy.
5. The management of Sub-committee on Labor Rights which includes investigation, organizing
meeting with state agencies and people networks in order to seek effective solution for existing
problems and seminars to disseminate information and campaign calling the government to solve
the problems.
6. Proposals include of the following three points:
6.1 Proposal of measures for problem solution by state agencies holding direct
responsibilities.
6.2 Amendment of laws, with emphasis on better benefits for migrant workers.
6.3 Proposal of policy-wise for the government.

Abstract of Chapter 9

Lessons Learned from Sub-committee on Labor Right’s Functioning And
Recommendations to NHRC

Sub-committee on Labor Rights managed to accomplish its assignments of five year term from
NHRC. There are lessons and obstacles learned in the promotion and protection of workers’ rights in
many aspects, including barriers concerning the direct authorities and responsibilities of the NHRC.
Problems of prime concern in this part are that there was no cooperation in arbitration and
examining of fact from the entrepreneurs both Thai and alien businessmen. Later there was common
understanding that examination meant ‘make the truth to be clear and justified for all’. The Sub-
committee on Labor Rights had tried to seek cooperation from employers and state officials, as well as
exercising its authority to call for documents and witnesses for explanation on facts, particularly to
persons and legal persons. Such authority was recognized in the constitution and laws which might render
the offense for jail term and fine, eventually giving information and facts beneficial to arbitration process
was observed with far better cooperation from employers both Thai and alien, as well as state officials.
However, there is no one was penalized by this legal measure, though it’s still seeking solution to stop the
problems, but it does help obtain better result for the arbitration application.
The greatest problem is to fight for protection of both individuals and union from being deprived
of rights. There are stages and period of time limited by laws and they usually were put to an end before
the union would bring the case to the court. Thus process made the Sub-committee fail to examine the
case in time, when matching with limited personnel and time, requiring to go to the juridical process,
regardless which parties were involved, the employer or employee, NHRC had to examine if the case was
in need of court intervention. While the court ruling process is normally time consuming and expensive,
the employee would be in trouble because of having no job to earn income. Finally, a lot of hard-core
union leaders had to give up and receive only a small amount of severance pay, then resigned. NHRC was
unable to keep those victimized union leaders in their battle field. Besides, in many cases, the court ruling
also caused the workers to be underdogs.
A very important problem facing NHRC so far is that the commission has no commanding
authority when the final report of examining results on labor right violation and NHRC was ready to
determine measure for solution upon relating persons or agencies, as well as to propose policy-wise
recommendations to the government. The 1997 charter stated no where NHRC could exercise its
authority to file legal charge to the court directly. This is a crucial obstacle that NHRC be unable to
remedy completely any immediate problem if some rules and orders are not rescinded, as well as some
sections that were loopholes in some laws and causing labor right violation in order to avoid repeatedly
law amendments. These barriers do still exist though there were many activities organized consistently for

และบทเรียนหกปีของคณะอนุกรรมการสิทธิแรงงาน ๓๕๓

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