GENERAL BACKGROUND
Thai economy
Since 1960 Thai government followed the strategies introduced by The World Bank in industrialization.
Industrial promotion was encouraged through the Investment Promotion Act, which was enacted in 1962. According to this Act, three main instruments were used; (1) a differential tariff structure-high on finished products and low on components and capital goods. This measure protected domestic industries; (2) tax exemption — this reduced protection costs in order to promote domestic products on competitive markets, both local and world markets; (3) a variety of physical and legal concessions.
As a consequence of the policy of investment promotion there was a rapid expansion of investment in the industrial sector and in foreign investment. The figures below illustrate the industrial expansion compared with the growth rate of agricultural sector.
Industrial Expansion compared with agricultural growth, 1961-81:
| sector/year | 1961-66 | 1967-71 | 1972-76 | 1977-81 |
| Agricultural | 4.6% | 4.1% | 3.9% | 3.9% |
| Industrial | 10.2% | 9.2% | 8.6% | 9.5% |
Source: NESDB (National Economic and Social Development Board)
This table shows the growth rate of the industrial sector has been 9.4% as an average compared with 4.1% for agriculture. Particularly, the growth rate of the textile industry was high, 19.1% in the period 1970-76. The strategy on industrialization was designed to change the basic economic structure of the country by making manufactured products, both in the context of import-substituting products and for export.
Along with industrial expansion, foreign investment has expanded in every industry. The figures below show the direct investment from various countries.
The in-flow of direct investment 1966-1980
| Country | Value of investment (million baht) | % |
| USA | 7,935.1 | 34.9 |
| Japan | 6,488.8 | 28.6 |
| Hong Kong | 2,512.50 | 11.1 |
| Others | 5,763.60 | 25.4 |
| Total | 22,700.0 | 100.0 |
Source: Bank of Thailand
Simulaneously, the number of industrial workers have rapidly increased. Particularly poor farmers have increasingly become workers.
The Labor Force in Thai Economy
Even though the industrial sector rapidly expands, the majority of Thai labor force are still working in agricultural sector.
Industrial production in Thailand may be divided into formal and informal sectors. Formal sector composes of modern business with the modern management. On the contrary, informal sector composes of traditional small business with the traditional management.
The production of formal sector are oriented to both import substitution and export, in which, these productions are dominated by MNCs. The informal sector produce products for local market and supply to the big business in the formal sector as subcontractors.
Concerning the small business in Thailand, according to the figure of the Department of Labor, the very small-sized factories employing 5-9 persons was 51.4% of the total number in 1977. These small enterprises employed 11.56% of the total workers in that year.
The larger small-sized factories employing 10-19 persons was 24.22% taking 11.3% of total industrial workers. Those factories employing 2049 workers was 15.26% of the total number and employed 16% of total workers.
Therefore all the small factories employing 549 workers comprised 78.25% of the total enterprises and employed 38.92% of the total number of industrial workers. If taking the workshops employing 1 -4 workers into account the number of small factories should be 90-95% of total number and employed more than 50% of total industrial workers.
Textile is the biggest industry in the Thai economy. The size of the factories range from very small to very big factories, employing workers from 5 persons to 4,000-5,000 persons.
Textile industry employs the largest number of workers. In 1979 the number of textile workers in formal factories was 283,621, particularly the number of workers in garment factories was 163,138 or 57.5% of the total textile workers. The majority of these workers are women.
Women Workers
The 1983 the figure of Thai labor force is 25.9 million, 18.1 working in agricultural sector and 7.3 million in non-agricultural sector.
The women labor force is about 47% of the total. In Bangkok, Samutprakarn, Nonthaburi and Pathumthani, which are the four industrialized provinces, the number of women workers is about 40% of the industrial labor force. This excludes the workers in illegal factories and prostitutes.
According to the figure of the Department of Factory, Ministry of Industry, there were 5,876 illegal factories in 1980.
WOMEN WORKING CONDITIONS
General Problem
Generally speaking the working condition of the majority women workers is bad. h is even worse in the formal sector.
The crucial problem is occupational illness. The research of Malinee Wongphanich on A Review of the Current Health Situation of Workers in Thailand found out that women workers in various factories are affected by many diseases relating to working condition.
In dry-cell battery manufacturing, the workers work with and breath in manganese dust everyday without adequate protection. Some workers become victims of the manganese intoxication. The symptoms of this disease are, they cannot walk, the muscles become tremulous and their legs become thinner and thinner.
In blanket factories, the girls suffer from occupational diseases also. They produce beautiful blankets for both domestic and export market, while their own health deteriorate as their lungs are full of cotton dust. They cannot breathe and become exhausted after their work shift.
It is pitiful to see them gasping for breath; they have to swing their bodies, and open wide their mouths for air. Their eyes startled.
According to the research of the Union for Civil Liberty (UCL) in 1981, it shows the various problems of working condition as the following:
Working hours - It is found that a number of factories employed women workers over 56 hours per week, although the regulation of the labor law on working hours is only 48 hours per week in manufacturing.
Maternity leave - The regulation of the labor law allows the women workers for • 60 days of maternity leave with full wage and can further the leave for another 60 days without wage. But, the research found that only 35% at the factories follow the legal regulation.
Wage - About 66% of factory workers are daily wage workers, and only 9% of the total new recruitment can finally become monthly wage workers. 12% of the workers in formal sector received wage lower than the minimum wage (in 1981, B54/day).
Overtime payment - The regulation of the labor law provides that overtime payment should be 1 hi times of usual wage. Only 51 % of the factories practise on legal regulation.
Dismissal Compensation - According to the legal regulations, the employees who work for 120-365 days have the right to receive dismissal compensation of 30 times the daily wage; those who work for 1-3 years has right to receive 90 times of the daily wage and for those who work for over 3 years, they could receive 180 times of the daily wage. The research found out that only 20% of the factories perfectly practise on legal regulation, 15% of the factories never pay compensation. Actually, the workers have absolute right to take the case to the labor court, but during the period of the consideration and investigation of the court, the workers have then no income for survival.
Welfare - 41% of the factory workers got free rooms provided by the employers. Nevertheless the rooms were too small for too many persons to live together. On average, one worker can only occupy 3 square meters of space. Only 6% of the workers receive a free meal, 16% of the workers receive free rice but without other food.
For medical care, 51% of the factories pay for all medical care, and 7% pay only half of the total cost of the medical care. The legal regulation allows the workers 30 days of sick leave with full wage, but only 45% of the factories practise on legal regulation. This means that some factories did not pay wage during the sick leave of the workers, and some factories pay only a part of the usual wage.
Working Condition of Women Workers in Informal Sector
It is very difficult to find out the actual condition of all the women workers in informal sector. Firstly there are hundred thousands of factories scattered in various places. Secondly a lot of factories are illegal establishments.
In term of wage, the worker receive payment below the legal minimum wage. The women workers in plastic factories, toy factories and sweet factories receive wage of about P30-50 per day. They have to work at least 10 hours per day.
In the factories where the workers have to work like slave, the employers force the girls to work 12-14 hours a day without wage. These girls were sold to the factories for B3,000(X)-4,000. In very poor rural families, the parents themselves sold their girls.
In coffee shops, night clubs and restaurants, the service girls receive wage only P500-600 a month without any welfare. The have to work 10-20 hours a day.
In service sector such as coffee shops, night clubs, restaurants, massage parlours, they are full of prostitute girls. They are exploited and suppressed by both government officers and employers.
There are prostitute houses in every town and city in Thailand. A large number of girls are forced to be prostitutes, but some of them are voluntary prostitutes. It is so sad to hear that poor parents in rural sell their girls to be prostitutes. But this is the fact, happened particularly in the families in the north of Thailand. Thai prostitute girls are sold not only to domestic prostitute houses but also to foreign countries.
It is unbelievable to learn that some prostitute girls sometimes have to sell their bodies to 20-25 men in one night. They could make B2,400-3,000 for the prostitute houses, while they receive an allowance of only B5 day.
Thai government promote tourism in order to earn income to compensate the deficit of the balance of trade. The prostitute business is the main favorite for the tourists, particularly, the tourists from Malaysia and Singapore. They form the largest groups of tourists in Thailand.
Working Condition of Women Workers in Textile Industry
In textile industry, it may be estimated roughly that the number of women workers is more than two times that of men workers. In 1976 the figures were 55,259 women and 55,721 men, but the research of UCL shows the percentage distribution between women and men workers as 67% and 33% in textile industry.
The noise and the cotton dust are the main problems of the textile workers. For example, 61% of the textile workers complained about the noise and the dust in the factories, 48% complained about inadequate light.
Regarding wages of textile workers in formal sector, 80% receive minimum wage or more than minimum wage (366-75/day in 1981), 33% of the new workers who were employed less than 1 year receive lower than minimum wage. In 1982, 25% of them receive wage of B45/day, while the minimum wage was B54/day.
Because of low wage, they had to work overtime. Women workers in the inspection department shows the highest rate of working overtime which was 89%; while the lowest rate was 46% which was in weaving. In the other sectors, more than 50% of the women workers had done overtime to some extent.
According to the research of Malinee Wongphanich in 1982, 66% of the workers in weaving suffered from accidents, followed by dyeing of 60% and spinning of 48%.
Most of textile factories have the night shift, meaning that women workers have to do night shift.
The comparative working condition of the women workers in textile industry may be concluded by the research of Jan Oddhnoff and his colleague (Industrialization and the Labor Process in Thailand) that,
"The best relative level is the working condition in textile factories in Rungsit site, the middle relative level in Samutprakarn and the worst relative level is the working condition in Omnai of Samutsakorn".
The comparative working condition is related to the scale of the factories and the style of management. In Rungsit the textile factories are modern factories and large scale with modern management, meanwhile factories in Omnai are smaller scale with traditional management. In Samutprakarn, the factories are mixed scale and with mixed style of management.
Comparative working condition is also related to trade unionism. In Rungsit area trade unions are well established. On the contrary, in Omnai area, trade unions are not well established. It is very difficult to organize trade unions there because the employers eliminate them by various means, legal and illegal.
THE PARTICIPATION IN TRADE UNIONS
The General Position
In Thailand, the majority of business are family business. The owners are Chinese Thai who have a strong sense of superiority towards their workers. They behave like the father of the traditional family who have absolute power in the family. Their paternalism demands the employees to obey quietly. Protests and strikes are, in their view an act of disobedience and unacceptable. Such actions make them lose face. There are words that the superior big boss always use like 'lost money is better than lost face'. The character of this relation can be summarized into two words: authoritarian paternalism.
Under the enforcement of labor law and the expansion of modern industry, the relation began to change. Nonetheless, paternalistic attitude still persists. This becomes a main obstacle for the workers to organize trade unions.
Furthermore, 50% of women workers who work in industrial sector come from rural family. That means they were brought up in traditional Thai families. The traditional Thai culture made them subordinate to men and superiors. Thai culture generate passive and timid attitude among the Thai women. Generally speaking, traditional Thai women lack self-confidence.
The standard of working conditions in various factories are bad, but the research of Malinee Wongphanich found that, in general, the women do not feel oppressed, disadvantaged or exploited by their jobs. They have a desire to keep on with their present employment. They don't want to change employers out of fear that the next one would be worse than this one. They are most interested in the wage received, far more than any long-term benefits or existing working condition. If there were a choice for improvement, they would neglect all conditions but wage increase. Many prefer night work and overtime to increase their income.
Their perception are narrow. They see their lives as a short-term situation living only weeks at a time and not considering overall plans or goals for the future.
Miss Wongphanich further her report that these women are not only inarticulate in expressing life views, but are also essentially without a life view. Their goals are short-term and their interests mostly self or family-centered. They would not be willing to participate in self-help program as they don't see themselves as disadvantaged. They only need more money which would most likely be spent on their families. A large number of them also remit money to their parents in the rural. They reflect a "passive poor class" mentality, as those who have experienced life as only a series of hand-to-month operations. This leads to the low participation of women workers in trade unions than it should be.
Apart from the authoritarian paternalism of the big boss and the passive attitude of the women workers, reactionary forces, including some government sectors, do much to suppress union enrollment and the participation in unions. Thai political structure rests on "influential people" who have enormous personal discretion in complying with laws. They are insulated by money and political debts owed to them by local and higher governmental officers. This very class of people include factory owners who are antagonistic to the unions.
In many cases the employers and local government officers cooperated closely. The employers would by all means cripple union growth and power. Union leaders are routinely frozen in their job positions by hostile employers, singled out for harsh work schedules, dismissed on unreasonable or false grounds, even killed by person or persons unknown.
For the women union leaders, they may be raped by person unknown, and frightened by the gangster employed by employers. Meanwhile the local government officers pretend not to have any knowledge of this. These always occur in Omnai and Samutprakarn.
The Participation in Trade Union of Women Workers in Textile Industry
The research of Oddhnoff shows that among the industrial branches, textile and clothing show the highest rates of unionization in which there were 59 unions in textile industry out of total 355 unions in 1982, or 16.6% of the total. Nearly 90% of textile workers in Rungsit are the members of trade unions.
This means that, the highest rate of participation of women workers in trade unions is in textile industry. Therefore, in textile unions there are many young women who are union leaders. Nevertheless the proportion of women leaders is relatively small.
The case study on participation of women workers in Thai Filament Trade Union by Justice and Peace shows that in 1982 there were 1,094 workers, 858 female and 236 male, or 78% and 22% respectively. The ratio between men and women of the union committee was as follows:
Sex ratio of Union Committee member. Thai Filament Trade Union:
| Year | Men:Women |
| 1976 | 12 : 2 |
| 1977 | 14 : 7 |
| 1978 | 8 : 1 |
| 1979 | 20 : 2 |
| 1980 | 22 : 3 |
| 1981 | 16 : 4 |
| 1982 | 13 : 2 |
One interesting point is that many women members had been candidates of the committee election but they got small votes from women workers. The main reason was that women workers themselves did not appreciate the ability of the women candidates. Some of them said "a trade union leadership is not women concern". This reflects the passive and timid attitude of Thai women workers. On the contrary, men leaders and men members encouraged women leaders. They had good reason that women leaders could easily keep contact with women workers.
However, education and the change of the socio political-economic system will certainly change the passive and timid attitude of Thai women workers. It is hopeful that in future, women workers will have more participation in the trade unions.
Bibliography
1. Justice and Peace: The Participation of Women Workers in Thai Filament Trade Union, 1983.
2. Jan Oddhnoff, Bruce Mcfarlane and Peter Limqueeo: Industrialization and the Labor Process in Thailand (Bangkok area). The Swedish Center for Working Life, Stockholm, Sweden, 1983.
3. Petprasert, Narong: The Political Economy of the Thai Labor Movement, 155, Hague 1982.
4. Union for Civil Liberty: Employment Condition, 1982.
5. Wongphanich, Malinee: - A Review of The Current Health Situation of Workers in Thailand: Trend and Counter-Measures, 1983. - Real Life Condition of Thai Women Textile Workers: Looking beyond them and their prospectives, 1983.
This article is reprinted from "Asian Action", published by the Asian Cultural Forum on Development, Thailand. It is slightly re-edited and adapted for publication in this Journal.