10.06.2007

Burmese Migrant Workers in Thailand

_ By Cedric Snodgrass 

In a capitalistic society, labour is a commodity which is bought by an employer and sold by the worker. It is subject to "the law of supply and demand". That is to say, where the demand for labour by employers is greater than the supply of available labour in "the labour market", workers can demand and get better salaries and working conditions than when the opposite is the case.

However, most of the time--except where highly skilled work is concerned--the supply of labour exceeds demand: there are too many workers and not enough jobs. This means that employers are in a strong negotiating position, and workers are forced by circumstances to accept very low wages.

Sometimes, in longer developed industrial economies, political pressures combined with industrial action (e.g. strikes) over a period of many years have led to a situation where social protections such as a minimum wage, health and safety regulations, unemployment benefits etc have been legislated and are enforced. In such countries the purely capitalistic economy has been softened by social and political factors.

However, even in these industrially and politically developed countries, the legal safeguards for workers, developed over many years of struggle, are now under threat from the economic forces. E.g. an employer can move his factory to a country where the same conditions are not in force and where labour is cheaper. If enough employers threaten to do this, a government, whether of the left or the right, is forced to abolish or to weaken existing protective legislation in order to protect the national economy and to prevent excessive unemployment.

In Thailand there are very many migrant workers from Burma, and to a lesser extent from other poorer South-East Asian countries. As result, the supply of workers for the unskilled jobs which are available to them far exceeds the number of jobs offered by Thai employers. This is one factor which puts the employers in a very strong bargaining position and the workers in a correspondingly weak position.

This is true not only for migrant workers from abroad but also for Thai workers in unskilled jobs, especially in border towns where there are very many Burmese workers. However Thai workers are better protected because they are in their own country. And they are better able to ensure that their legal protections are enforced. Legal protection cannot always be easily enforced, even in developed countries. One can quote an example of someone in England being wrongfully dismissed and then advised by the Department of Employment not to take legal action because, on the basis of their experience with similar cases, they judged that "you will afterwards find it very difficult to get work with other employers".

Burmese workers in Thailand, when they have a work permit, are not so fortunate as Thais because:

1. Although theoretically protected, they do not have the same rights under Thai law as a Thai person.
2. Dishonest practices and corruption amongst employers and some government officials, such as policemen, make it difficult for a registered Burmese worker to exercise the rights to which he or she is entitled by law.

These difficulties are sometimes reinforced by nationalistic prejudice against people from Burma, irrespective of their ethnic origin, resulting from the antagonistic histories of the Kingdoms of Siam and of Ava. Moreover even amongst educated Thais there is much ignorance about the extreme difficulties faced by people in Burma, especially in the non-Burman areas. It appears that the main Thai language media do not mention such things.

Burmese workers without work-permits are in an extremely difficult situation, because legally they do not have a right to be where they are. They can only remain where they are, i.e. in Thailand, because it is in the interests of their Thai employer and of some government officials, such as policemen. It is in the interests of the employer because he can pay very low wages, well below the minimum wage for a migrant worker. And it can be in the interests of officials through their receiving bribes, in cash or kind (e.g. sexual favours from girl shop-assistants). Corruption enables these unregistered workers to remain in Thailand.

One of the difficulties to registration is the cost of the work permit.

Another difficulty faced by a worker, once registered, is that the work-permit is commonly kept by the employer, who gives a photocopy to the worker. A photocopied document has no legal validity, and exposes the worker to the risk of deportation or of extortion of money. This gives the Thai employer greater control--a form of blackmail--over his migrant workers.

A somewhat similar situation can exist elsewhere. For example, many young bilingual secretaries came (and probably still come) from Continental Europe to London to work in offices there to improve their English. Before Britain entered the Common Market (now called the European Community) these people needed a work-permit. They could only work for the employer named on the work-permit and this enabled the employer to pay them a very low salary, because they could not go and get another job. However, from 1973 onwards these girls did not need a work permit. Most of them quit their job to take another job at twice the pay they had been getting. The difference between these migrant workers in England and those in Thailand is that the secretaries from Continental Europe were not facing starvation in their home countries. They came to improve their English and in this way to improve their employment prospects in their own country, since English is the language of international business.

Why have so many Burmese workers come to Thailand to look for work? Is it to get a better-paid job? No. In general, it is in order to survive. The military government of Burma has destroyed not only the economy but, what is probably more important, the social fabric of society. They have done this in many ways, including forced relocation of communities, confiscation of land, destruction of villages, forced labour that disrupts the agricultural cycle, and disruption of communal decision-making by militarily-imposed orders.

A somewhat similar situation existed in England in the eighteenth and early nineteen centuries, when Parliament (which represented the rich) passed a series of laws known as The Enclosures Acts. These laws deprived the village communities of their jointly owned lands, known as "the commons" or common land. This struck a blow at the basis of English rural communities, forcing many of the poorer people to flee in search of work to the new developing industrial towns. There they were employed by a new class of people, the factory owners, who employed them for very low wages, and they lived and worked in extremely difficult conditions.

The essential remedy to the social and economic destruction which makes survival difficult and which makes emigration from Burma a necessity for so many people is to remove the cause of it. The cause of it is government by the army. Its removal from power is a longer term project. (The sooner that is realized and appropriate plans for its removal implemented, the sooner it will be got rid of)

A more immediately realisable answer to the problem is to set up special economic development zones in border areas of Thailand, with inducements for foreign companies to invest there. The objective is two-fold : increase the demand for workers, and benefit the economy of Thailand through competitiveness in export markets deriving from wages that are relatively low, but hopefully improved on the miserable wages often paid at present which are not in accordance with Thai law.

Special economic development zones inside Thailand may be of greater benefit to Thailand than similar zones that have been proposed across the border. They would be more attractive to foreign companies, for whom lack of rule of law in Burma is a strong disincentive to investment. They could also be more attractive to non-Burman ethnics and Burmans with democratic leanings, whom Thailand should see as her natural allies.

If Thais encourage people from Burma to feel well-disposed towards them, this will do something to counteract the hatred for Thailand which the Burmese generals are encouraging, through the media and--as was done about five years ago--by re-writing the school history books to teach children to look upon Thais as their enemies.

Limiting the flood of Burmese workers mainly to certain areas along the border may help to lessen the social impact on poorer Thais, although potentially increasing the impact within those limited areas. As an example of what is meant, a Thai woman, who accompanied her English husband to Mae Sot when he was working there, looked for a job for herself. But she decided the wages offered her were too low "because of all the Burmese there".

The sudden arrival of many foreign workers, with the problems and changes it may cause, can lead to bad feelings and violence in almost any country. An example is the Notting Hill race riots in London in 1959. Violence broke out against immigrants, mainly from the West Indies. The Notting Hill area was then one of the poorer areas of the city. It is the poorer people of a country who feel the worst effects of large-scale immigration. The middle classes can benefit, for example, from cheap domestic workers.

While it is necessary to encourage companies to invest in border areas, it is at the same time necessary to encourage them to treat their workers correctly. It may be necessary to educate employers in this matter. It would be desirable to offer some form of incentive to factory owners to treat their workers correctly.

It is also very important to educate migrant workers about their rights, and to ensure that the legal mechanisms by which they can enforce their rights are effective.

As long as there are illegal immigrants, there will be extortion of money, for example by some policemen; since the alternative is that the policemen apply the law and deport the illegal immigrants. However there needs to be better protection from the worst abuses, such as violence from whoever. And this means there must be a well-known and effective channel for denouncing such violence and ensuring protection.

To ensure greater compliance with the law and to reduce extortion, registration needs to be more easily accessible, and workers should not be tied to one employer. Registration should not be in any way subject to or dependent upon the advice of the Burmese military authorities. This would be against the interests of both Thailand and of the migrant workers, whether or not they have political connections.

Thailand needs to look closely to find new ways by which it can benefit from the flood of foreign workers which it did not ask for but which are a measure of the success of the Thai economy. The future growth of the Thai economy will depend to some extent upon the spending power of ordinary households in bordering countries. And not upon the "defence" budget of the potentially hostile military regime next-door.

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