Labor Day: little festive, lots of worries
Yesterday was International Labor Day, but there wasn't much reason to celebrate Bangkok Post. Although there were festivities, I don't read a word about it. Quotes from workers.
For example, construction worker Suchart says he is happy to have a job. He works double shifts and earns more than his colleagues. But fatigue is starting to set in. He would rather have a permanent job with days off.
Suchart believes that the government should abolish the current 'no work, no pay' system. The minimum daily wage, which was raised to 300 baht last year, is barely enough to make ends meet and women usually earn less than men. The government has promised workers that they can earn at least 9.000 baht per month, but that means that they must also work on the statutory day off per week.
Daeng, who works in a clothing export company, believes that she is being taken advantage of as a day laborer. She only has six vacation days a year. How different it was in Taiwan, where she worked. There she received a monthly wage and the maximum working hours were strictly enforced.
Miew, a worker at an auto parts factory, says the situation for workers placed by temp agencies is even worse. The companies they work for do not feel responsible for their well-being. And the agencies withhold salary when they are absent.
According to Bundit Thanachaisettawut, labor specialist at the Arom Phong Pha-ngan foundation, the minimum wage is not enough for most households. Workers are forced to work overtime, which is both physically and mentally exhausting. The ailing economy adds to this. Employers are cutting wages and benefits, and some are paying nothing at all.
The provincial union in Buri Ram is urging the government to set up a fund for workers who lose their jobs due to the sluggish economy. According to the union, many small and medium-sized companies are forced to lay off staff in order to survive.
(Source: Bangkok Post, May 2, 2014)
Photos: Workers from the Thai Labor Solidarity Committee and the State Enterprises Workers' Relation Confederation demonstrated yesterday outside the parliament building, where Labor Day festivities were held. Action leader Suthep joined them.
This is Thailand, not the Netherlands, so if a company continues to pay its employees if there is insufficient work, the company will go bankrupt, waiting for better times is the best.
People from the family and their friends, neighbors, etc. often work in the company. And they live together and the boss often provides shelter and food, and often people go to work on the land with their families, etc., when there is not enough work. etc. Together they have a good life, help each other and share with each other, and also take care of each other's children if necessary or for each other's sick mother, that is THAIS.
They hold the boss in high esteem, the boss needs them and they need the boss, respect
for each other, the Netherlands can learn a lot from that.
Greetings from Haazet.
Many pensioners, now residing in TH, were born at a time when the working conditions outlined in the article were still commonplace in NL as well. In the early 50s, I went to primary school in the Gelderse Achterhoek as a young boy. My father and his brothers worked in Germany as construction workers or factory workers: low daily wages, 6 long working days a week, home on Saturday evening, back on Sunday afternoon, poor workplaces, little perspective. It was not until the 50s that working conditions improved, even more construction started in the Netherlands, and people no longer had to cross the border, and there was more employment, education, training, perspective. There was more togetherness, more family spirit, more sharing.
When I drive through the Isan, see the people plodding along, when I oversee Thai people and their working conditions, hear their experiences about their experiences as a worker, official, or stall holder, I often think of the years back then. TH then resembles the Netherlands in many ways during the early years of the Reconstruction. But that is where any comparison ends. In NL, the circumstances for all people changed gradually and prosperously. IN TH conditions remain the same, or even worsen. Look at what is happening to the rice farmers, see what the increase in the minimum wage to 300 bpd has done to the lowest earners, think about the causes and consequences of the ever widening income inequality. (Read: https://www.thailandblog.nl/nieuws/schokkende-cijfers-inkomensongelijkheid/)
In fact, the goal is to move forward in life. A job is a tool for this, in addition to education and having prospects for a better life. It can't be the intention that you as an individual can't plan what your life should look like, can it? That you sometimes work for less than 300 bpd every day, and have to put up with family members in order to live, provide each other with a living, make family life dependent on a boss and on what a family is worth? A good life together, as @haazet argues. That may seem so under the current Thai relations, but does not seem to me to be conducive to the progress and further development of the country.
You cannot compare TH with NL, but one thing I know for sure: if TH wants to participate in the momentum of the peoples, join the AEC at the end of 2015, and prepare its population for more modern and democratic relationships, it will have to rise quickly from old agricultural behaviors and customs, and denying themselves feudal dimensions such as 'looking up to the boss'. I bet that such an attitude is also very good for politics.
You are right. But when I see how many expensive cars are driving here in Korat. Then I wonder if it's all right. And also when I see how full the restaurants are and it's everywhere. Expensive hondas and toyotas and no small ones. and how many new houses are being bought. If what is being said here is true, it will all collapse today or tomorrow
Don't look at it, dear Mitch.
Because that is almost all bought on credit. You do know that the government has come up with the 'first car' plan?
And those 'expensive Hondas and Toyotas' and houses…that's all status. On credit, that is… so it is indeed about to collapse.