Labour activists deride charter plan
The fewer than 100 workers' representatives to be appointed to the 2,000-member National People's Assembly (NPA) cannot really call themselves true representatives, as only 3.5 per cent of Thailand's workforce is organised and only union leaders will be selected, a leading labour expert said yesterday.
"Even if all unions nationwide meet to elect their representatives, they still cannot call themselves [true] representatives, because only 300,000 or so of the workforce are organised out of the total workforce of 8.5 million," said Bundit Thanachaisethavut, a labour-rights researcher and director of the Arom Pongpangan Foundation. The NPA will be charged with selecting 200 of its members for the Constitution Drafting Assembly (CDA), from which the military Council for National Security (CNS) will choose the final 100. The CDA will then choose 25 people to form the Constitution Drafting Committee (CDC), to which the CNS will add another 10. "I personally think we should oppose this [junta-endorsed] constitution-drafting process, because it's a mere soap opera set up to legitimise a new constitution. What we should do is demand the restoration of the 1997 People's Constitution instead of wasting our time with this process," Bundit said. He admitted that his was a minority view in the organised labour movement, as 1,000 of the 1,600 labour unions are expected to attend the meeting called by the Labour Ministry tomorrow for the purpose of selecting workers' representatives for the NPA. Wilaiwan Sae Tia, the president of the Thai Labour Solidarity Committee, which led the labour movement against former premier Thaksin Shinawatra's rule before the military coup, shared Bundit's scepticism. "I think the old [1997] constitution is already fine. Minor alteration may be needed, but it should stand as a basis for the future charter," she said. Furthermore, she said, the process would certainly not be representative at the drafting stage, as that committee will only have 35 members, ten of them appointed by the junta. "Will any worker representative be remaining by then?" she wondered. Wilaiwan said she was not placing much hope in the junta-appointed Surayud Chulanont government, as there was no sign that the right to labour organisation and the right to strike would be respected. She said some labour-related issues would be discussed by the junta-appointed National Legislative Assembly (NLA), but there was only one labour representative in the body. Both Wilaiwan and Bundit said the right to strike was seriously undermined by martial law and the order forbidding political gatherings of five or more people. "Serious labour activities have been halted," said Bundit.
Pravit Rojanaphruk The Nation
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