29 mar 2004

The government’s deepening stand-off with the electricity workers over privatisation is eerily familiar. Fifteen years ago, the Chatichai government launched into privatisation and faced similar concerted opposition. State enterprise workers have been the best organised since the start of Thailand’s labour movement. Their protests forced the Chatichai government to stall on privatisation. But the successor coup government took revenge. It banned the state enterprise unions, and the protest leader Thanong Pho-arn disappeared.

It would be a pity if this round ends in the same crude way. There is a growing understanding that one important element needed in Thailand’s aspiration to become a modern economy (remember Thaksin’s dreams of OECD status) is a proper modern system of labour relations.

Those relations are currently governed by a law that is almost thirty years old (the 1975 Labour Relations Act). Since then, the world has changed a lot, Thailand has developed enormously, and many new labour issues have merged. Thailand persistently refuses to ratify the most important labour standards of the International Labour Organisation (ILO). Huge numbers of firms systematically evade the inadequate labour laws, especially through casualisation. Workplace injuries and other health issues increase every year. The number of grievances filed with the Labour Ministry has rocketed over the last few years. So have cases launched in the labour courts. The existing machinery for handling labour relations is now swamped. Even the usually conservative labour bureaucrats are saying the systems no longer work and need to be modernised.

Most remarkably, the Director-General of the Department of Social Welfare and Labour Protection has argued for more unions and stronger unions. He thinks that would help rational management of labour problems, and would contribute to productivity and growth—the main aims of the government.

When the Thai Rak Thai party was canvassing support in the lead-up to the 2001 election, labour was one of the groups it targeted. The party sat down with labour leaders and drafted a ‘Policy of Developing Human Resources and Social Welfare Structures’ with nine main major initiatives. The most important of these were: ratifying the ILO conventions on freedom of association and collective bargaining; establishing an independent Health and Safety Institute; and extending social welfare, especially through an unemployment scheme.

So far so good. But when the party took power and presented its policies to parliament, the nine labour initiatives shrank down to five. Some of the most important had been dropped (the ILO conventions and health institute). All the detail had disappeared. The labour portfolio was treated as coalition fodder. The most striking labour event of the government’s first year was a surge in the corruption scams over job placement agencies.

This pattern changed only when Suwat Liptapanlop took up the portfolio in October 2002. He promised to solve 23 labour problems in two years (recognise the style?). He urged employers to be less hostile towards unions. He promised to modernise the ministry. He sacked several senior officials over the job placement scams. He reacted positively to a project to unify and strengthen the fractious labour movement. He pushed through some important changes on the health issues by extending the labour protection and workers compensation laws to many more groups. He promised to bring all workers under the social security system by 2005.

Of course, he did not last long. There were many reasons why he was sacked. But part of these was that he was doing something on the labour front and threatening to become popular as a result. With his removal, the portfolio returned to the safe-keeping of someone with little interest and no expertise.

Last year on Labour Day, the prime minister addressed the workers’ rally in Sanam Luang. He said he would sponsor education for workers’ children, provide cheap housing, promote skill training, raise wages for skilled work, and extend the social security system.

This seemed to be the most positive approach to labour by any prime minister in recent years. The reality has been a bit more prosaic. Since Suwat was bumped out of the ministry last November, not much has happened. The government launched the very important unemployment insurance scheme, but halved its own contribution to a mean-spirited 0.25 per cent. The government is contemplating replacing the archaic Labour Relations Act with a bill which the ILO has condemned as “inconsistent with international labour standards”.

Most of this government’s efforts on the labour front have been devoted to increasing labour skills. Thaksin and his team are committed to moving Thailand “up the value chain”. Labour skills are clearly part of that project. So too are a proper system of labour relations, and good protection for health and safety. Yet this government does not seem interested.

This is a government of big businessmen and it’s not really surprising that they think like big businessmen. They want workers to work harder and better. They don’t want workers to have more bargaining power. They are prepared to make gradual extensions to the social security system. They are not ready to embrace the issues (ILO conventions, health institute, privatisation) which the workers themselves feel are important. They have a gut fear of a stronger union movement.

Thailand needs to modernise its primitive system of labour relations. Even the conservative bureaucrats grappling with the mess created by the current system can see that. The risk is that the confrontation over privatisation will see a retreat to even more primitive methods. After all, the coup junta in 1991 seems to have dealt with the problem by abduction and summary decree. And there seem enough reasons to fear the same sort of pattern could recur.

(Thanks to Kevin Hewison and Andrew Brown)