15 September, 2010
To highlight how the issue of Contract and Agency Labour (CAL) is being used by companies around the world, and to demonstrate the innovative way trade unions are dealing with these issues, the ICEM CAL Project is producing a series of country reports. The first of these reports focuses on the situation in Thailand.
The use of CAL is widespread in Thailand and became even more so during the economic crisis, which hit Thailand’s export markets hard. In 2008, the Thai labour code was amended to include improved rights for agency workers, with companies being required to pay equal wages to agency workers doing the same jobs as permanent workers.
This promising piece of legislation, however, has been severely undermined by the fact that many companies simply switched to employing workers directly on short-term contracts and paying them only the legal minimum wage.
Thai unions are responding to the proliferation of CAL in various ways. Many are working to ensure that CAL workers can join the same union as permanent, directly-employed workers. TIGLU, the union representing workers at Thai Industrial Gases (TIG), Thailand’s largest provider of industrial gases and a subsidiary of German-based Linde Group, launched a campaign to secure their right to recruit CAL workers.
CAL Thai Project Manual
In early 2008, with support from the ICEM CAL Project and from ICEM affiliated unions in Germany, the Netherlands, and Belgium, TIGLU signed a milestone agreement with the company solidifying the union’s right to organise contract and agency workers. The ICEM is working to ensure that freedom of association is respected for all workers at TIG/Linde.
Although it is often extremely challenging to recruit CAL members, a number of Thai unions have been successful in their attempts to do so. A branch union affiliated to the ICEM affiliate, the Paper and Printing Workers Federation (PPFT), successfully recruited 80 of 120 contract workers employed by Cellox, a tissue paper company in Thailand. The ICEM Asia CAL Project is working with the union and PPFT to organise union education for the new members.
Many Thai unions have made CAL a priority in their collective bargaining and organising efforts. Since 2006, the Local Union of the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand, called EGAT-LU, has been bargaining collectively to improve the working conditions of CAL workers at EGAT, the public-sector electric power company that employs 7,000 agency workers.
In April 2007, the ICEM-affiliated union amended its statutes to make it possible for contract workers to join. Since then, the union has negotiated a new company policy with EGAT, which not only aims to improve working conditions for CAL workers but also ensures that all workers receive the entitlements outlined in Thai labour legislation. In 2009, the union launched an organising drive and succeeded in recruiting 650 of EGAT’s 760 contract workers. The ICEM is working with EGAT-LU and the Danish Union of Electricians (Dansk El-Forbund) to organise union education for the newly recruited members.