Thai autoworkers want limit on contract workers

THAILAND: Viwat Pantsra, president of the Thai Auto Industry Labour Federation, has announced his union will petition the government and parliament for a law limiting the number of workers on contract jobs to no more than 30 per cent of the permanent staff at a workplace. The union leader likened contract work to "a form of slavery. Workers put in that kind of job have no job security and no welfare, unlike those on the regular payroll. It's just unbelievable that our auto industry is growing rapidly but the workers who help it grow are being taken advantage of," he said. The auto industry union, a member of the IMF-affiliated Confederation of Thai Electrical Appliances, Electronic, Automobile and Metalworkers (TEAM), says that employers are increasingly resorting to contract workers to cut production costs and that the hiring of contract workers in many of Thailand's auto plants had become common practice. There will also be a move to demand that contract workers receive the same benefits as permanent workers.