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while workers’ contribution in formal sector was partly shouldered by their employer and allocation of
government budget. Though civic sector had called for a new section of Labor Protection Act to cover
home workers as well as Social Security Act to cover all workers in informal sector, but the response at
policy level was very minimum and lack actual proceeding.
2. Causes of Labor Right Violation
The main factor of right violation was from employers who wanted to get maximum profits and
aimed for trade competition to get cheapest labor cost.
Employers managed their business just to solely have their firms survived well, thus flexible
employment strategy was applied largely and increasingly causing violation of labor rights in every target
group and also in every dimension. Minimum standard required by law was even not observed in those
industries, they took loopholes in the laws to exploit workers. Under consultancy and planning contract
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

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