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Bangkok Post January 4 (r)



                              Last Modified: Sun, Jan 4, 1998

   Only 300,000 register for temporary work



Acommittee made up of representatives of the National Security Council, the three armed forces 
and the Police Department, will look at the problem of illegal foreign workers.

The committee will draw up measures to deal with such workers, whose number exceeds one 
million. 

Of this number, only about 300,000 have registered for a temporary work permit. The rest are 
mostly made up of Burmese. 

When the registration period expires in June none of the registered workers will have their permits 
extended.

The committee will look into international laws regarding war refugees and how to repatriate them, 
although doing so would not be easy, said Labour and Social Welfare Minister Trairong 
Suwankhiri.

Meanwhile, Chulalongkorn University economics lecturer Sangsit Piriyarangsan has urged the 
government to strengthen tripartite labour committees to help them solve labour problems.

He said the existing labour panels had failed to efficiently deal with labour problems.

Mr Sangsit said the tripartite panels were weak because some members, representing entrepreneurs 
or workers were unqualified and had little understanding about what they should be doing.

"They must not represent their organisations just for their own sakes or play politics all the time," he 
said.

The quota system used by employees' associations to select members for tripartite labour panels 
and as associate judges of the Labour Court had led to problems of personnel qualifications so the 
government should offer training, the lecturer added.

He also said some government officials were interfering with the elections for some panels and this 
meant that there had been a failure to solve labour problems and conflict between some employers 
and employees. 

Deputy Labour Ministry permanent secretary Prasong Rananant said tripartite labour committees 
had failed to solve some problems because the number of problems had increased and become 
more complicated.

He accepted there were inadequate qualified panel members and that many of those who were 
qualified could not give the job their best because they were on several committees.

However, the government would try in every way to strengthen labour unions, federations and 
congresses, and tripartite labour panels by giving more training.

Qualifications for Central Labour Court associate judges and membership of some panels, including 
the National Wage and Labour Relations committees, should be set and a person should not be 
allowed to sit in more than one committee, he said.

At present, there are 16 tripartite labour panels.