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Published on November 17, 2007

"They're not different and their policies to help workers are superficial," said labour expert Sakdina Chatrakul na Ayudhya. "Most major parties are neo-liberal and pay little interest to the labour sector. I don't see any party preparing a labour expert in their line-up to take the post of labour minister."

Labour researcher Bandit Thanachaisaettawut of the Arom Pongpangan Foundation agrees, though he thinks many parties could have policies that would please workers. "The Democrat Party is the only party that has forwarded me its labour policy outline," he said. "They may expand social security to cover workers in the non-formal sector and increase protection of women and children labourers."

However, Bandit remains sceptical. "I think many policies are about election campaigning and the chance of [the parties] following through after being elected are slim, especially if there isn't enough pressure."

What's more, Bandit says many  labour policies promoted by parties are more social or populist policies.

Sakdina and Bandit agree that no strong party will represent workers for years to come for several reasons.

"There is no ideology-based effort. This can only succeed when society accepts a socialist ideology to a certain degree. We need social democrats," said Sakdina. "The unionisation rate is very low, just 1.4 per cent out of 35.5 million formal and informal workers."

Many workers can't vote in the city or province that they work in, adds Bandit, thus diluting their votes because they have to return to their home provinces to vote, while in rural provinces agricultural issues dominate.

Bandit added that during the decades of dictatorship in Thailand, big business and the middle class grew but the labour movement was squashed. "There's no mass party representing workers," he pointed out. "Thai politics today is still about groups of politicians more than a political party as an institution. Power is centred on the party leader and the financier.

"I don't see any parties being sincere to workers," he said, adding that none has offered to decentralise the Social Security Fund, which is now worth Bt400 billion and subject to government abuse.

While some groups have attempted to promote small labour-oriented parties, Bandit sees these efforts as acts of well-intended intellectuals that failed to truly galvanise popular labour consciousness.

However, Sakdina thinks such efforts should be supported.

Both agree that if Thai workers are without real representation, migrant labours will be in an even more precarious situation.

"I'm worried about them. The mass media are fanning ultra-nationalism and portray them as a problem," said Sakdina.

"From what I saw of the Democrats' policy on migrant workers, it is to make them legal in order to prevent them causing security problems and stealing jobs from Thai workers. This is a typical state view," said Bandit. "What they should do is offer them protection."

Pravit Rojanaphruk

 The Nation