Bangkok Post March 1, 1998 DEPORTA

[burma@xxxxxxxxxx]

Bangkok Post March 1, 1998 
DEPORTATION

Rights and wrongs of repatriation
QUANDARY: The Thai Government's decision to deport 300,000 illegal alien 
workers over the next six months is a two-edged sword. The favourable 
effect is job openings for nationals. The unfavourable effect is an 
increase in labour shortages in sectors shunned by Thais.
SUNDAY PERSPECTIVE REPORTERS

While the world is still asleep, widow La-ou, 35, wakes up and takes a 
quiet bath to prepare herself for another working day. By the time the 
sun breaks over the sky, she is ready for the tasks ahead.

An hour before work time, La-ou is already waiting at a small tourist 
resort outside Kanchanaburi. When the workers arrive at the office of 
her Thai employer, she stands unobtrusively at one side.

The boss would see neither boredom nor fatigue on her face. She would 
follow orders promptly, whether it be cleaning, washing, trimming the 
grass or other heavier tasks. 

After work, when the Thai workers have all gone home, La-ou is still 
around looking for something else to be done. She would not return home 
until the boss asks her to do so, an hour or two later.

No wonder people think that she is a diligent and reliable worker.

But she is not an exemplary Thai worker. Neither character, nor culture, 
nor work ethic drives her.

La-ou is an illegal immigrant from Burma. 

What drives her is fear.

Opening salvo: In a talk with Sun day Perspective, La-ou said in broken 
Thai, "I'm afraid to lose this job. I have a son and parents (in Burma) 
to take care of. "

As an illegal migrant worker, she has every reason to fear.

On January 19, the Thai Government set an action plan to ease 
unemployment among the Thais. 

Less than a month later, 29,412 illegal workers were dismissed and 
replaced by Thais. 

Official sources reveal that the illegal workers are mostly Burmese 
working in Kanchanaburi, Tak, Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai, Ranong and other 
border provinces.

The Labour and Social Welfare Ministry continues to confer with 
employers and convince them to terminate the employment of unskilled, 
illegal workers. Thai authorities pledge to find Thai workers as 
replacements.

By this week, Sunday Perspective learned that Thai employers are ready 
to dismiss another 15,000 Burmese labourers.

The National Committee on Employment chaired by Prime Minister Chuan 
Leekpai has announced that the Government will deport about 300,000 
illegal alien labourers over the next six months. 

Breathing space: La-ou and many unskilled alien workers told Sunday 
Perspective that they could do nothing but try and hold on to their jobs 
as long as they can. "If we lose our jobs here, we would starve," they 
said.

The Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare claims that there are at least 
one million illegal immigrants engaged in unskilled labour or in 
low-skill jobs in Thailand.

About 300,000 have registered and have received temporary work permits 
under the programme formed by Cabinet resolution in 1996. These 
registered alien workers would not be immediately affected by the 
repatriation programme, which aims to send home 300,000 illegal 
labourers.

This gives the immigrants a breathing space of two years, but does not 
grant them alien residency status; they are still illegal immigrants. 
The resolution applies only to illegal immigrants from Burma, Laos and 
Cambodia.

However, Thailand teems with illegal immigrants from China, Vietnam, 
Bangladesh and other countries including India and the Philippines, 
mostly in low-skilled jobs.

There is no clear explanation why the temporary legalisation of 
employment was limited to the Burmese, the Laotians and the Cambodians. 
Ranking labour officials said that these three nationalities number most 
in Thailand. 

"Another reason is that most of them aim to proceed to third countries, 
not to work here," said a labour department source.

These illegal immigrants are in transit and will leave for another 
country using fake documents.

Sunday Perspective learned that most illegal immigrants enter Thailand 
on their own. Some come in with the help of others, including human 
smuggling groups. The latter group brings in children or women, usually 
employed by force or voluntarily in prostitution or as professional 
beggars. Others go into agricultural or construction work. 

Those who arrive here on their own generally find unskilled jobs with 
wages below the legal minimum. 

Handling the problem: A decade back, illegal immigrants left their home 
countries for political reasons, including internal warfare. Later, 
however, the reasons were more economic.

"On hindsight, if job-hunting had a system, we would not have had this 
problem," said a ranking official at the Labour and Social Welfare 
Ministry.

At the moment, Thailand has to bear an increasing influx of job seekers 
with neither screening nor control systems in place. As a result, 
security officials foresee possible problems of national security, while 
other government officers foresee social and economic problems arising.

Nevertheless, the Cabinet resolution of 25 June 1996 reflected one fact 
about Thailand, which is that there is a labour shortage.

The past decade saw the increasing complexity of the illegal worker 
problem, with more and more government agencies involved in the handling 
and solving of the various problems that arose.

The agencies include the National Security Council (NSC) on the national 
policy making level. Other agencies on the operations level are the 
Interior Ministry's Local Administration Department, the Immigration 
Office, the Labour and Social Welfare Ministry, as well as the Foreign 
Affairs Ministry.

After discussions among these agencies, the government saw the 
importance of upholding national security, taking into account the needs 
of foreign labour and not neglecting protection and human rights. This 
was drawn up into a national policy, resulting in the 25 June Cabinet 
resolution in 1996. The resolution calls for the registration of all 
illegal unskilled workers. This will help the authorities monitor their 
movements, ease the labour shortage, and legalise their employment. Only 
300,000 illegal immigrants registered with the labour authorities get 
temporary work permits.

One suspected reason is costs. Employers are required to pay a guarantee 
fee of 1,000 baht per employee. Each labourer is required to have a 
health examination costing 500 baht, and buy a registration card costing 
1,000 baht.

New policy: Due to economic changes and the soaring unemployment rate, 
the government issued another labour policy on 19 January: Illegal and 
unskilled workers must leave the country in order to reserve jobs for 
unemployed Thais.

In the first six months (from 19 January), the Government expects to 
generate 300,000 jobs from for Thais, and the same number of illegal 
workers will lose their jobs and would be deported.

In preparation, the Government allocated 53 million baht for the 
Interior Ministry to set up deportation centres in Tak, Kanchanaburi, 
Ranong, and in Chiang Rai.

Before this, however, Thailand has already sent back about 30,000 
illegal immigrants, mostly jobless Burmese.

Blast from Burma: In Rangoon, Burmese authorities reacted angrily. 
Rangoon described the repatriation of their people from Thailand as 
"pitiful" and accused Bangkok of double standards.

"It is rather pitiful that Myanmar (Burmese) nationals, legal or 
otherwise, once welcomed in Thailand are now being sent back home," said 
the state-run New Light of Myanmar newspaper last month.

The report accused Thai businessmen of knowingly employing illegal 
workers while the Thai authorities turned "a blind eye" to the issue.

"While millions of Thais seek better-paid jobs outside their country, 
Myanmar people go to work at places in Thailand where Thais do not want 
to work," the report said.

Thailand defends its right to repatriate illegal workers but promised to 
do so in a humanitarian manner.

Losers and winners: Labour analysts say that the repatriation programme 
will hurt unskilled workers and their countries.

A state social worker estimates an illegal and unskilled alien earns an 
average of 3,000 baht a month. An unskilled Thai earns 6,700 baht a 
month under the minimum wage requirement.

A sex worker earns an average of 5,000 baht a month.

"In exceptional cases a sex worker may earn up to 50,000 baht a month, 
tax free," the source said.

A source in a commercial bank in Chiang Mai and Lampang told Sun day 
Perspective that girls in the sex industry send home up to 15,000 baht a 
month.

Presuming that 50 percent of the illegal immigrants send home a third of 
their earnings at the average of 3,000 baht, "the outflow is so huge 
already," he said.

Authorities estimate that the 500,000 illegal immigrants save up to 500 
million baht a month or 6,000 million baht a year, flowing out of the 
country via underground routes.

On the other hand, others in the human rights movement view alien 
workers as losing more than they gain.

"They make money, but it is comparatively small. With or without a work 
permit, they have never been protected by the law," one source said. 

"These people couldn't demand minimal wages. They could not claim any 
type of public welfare." Those who are sick simply leave or die.

Despite the debate, illegal workers now have little time to earn or 
endure the ill treatment in Thailand. 

As Thailand looks ahead to save money, neighbouring countries with 
illegal workers here will feel the pinch.

However, the pinch will be felt most by Thai business operators who have 
been enjoying cheap labour.

These businesses paid the illegal immigrants half of what Thai workers 
received. A business operator could save about 3,350 baht a month per 
illegal immigrant.

Granting that half of the estimated one million illegal immigrants were 
employed, these businesses save as much as 1,675 million baht a month or 
20,000 million baht a year. Following the new repatriation policy, 
business costs will rise and so will prices. Aggravating the situation 
is that certain jobs have always been refused by Thais.

Still, Thai workers have been heard to complain that they have been 
losing job opportunities to illegal alien workers. 

In random interviews with villagers at border towns such as Kanchanaburi 
and Ranong, Sunday Perspec tive recently learned that Thais have not 
been getting along well with the illegal immigrants.

In Kanchanaburi, people speak of frequent street fights between illegal 
workers and Thais. Thais claim that these incidents start from "bad 
people" from outside of the border.

They claim "feeling unsafe" and mention crimes committed by some of 
these "bad people."

They reminded Sunday Perspective of cases of robberies and murders 
allegedly committed by "these people" who run to hide outside the 
border.

Will the repatriation programme make these Thais feel happier and safer?

Thais have also been long complaining of public funds allocated to 
social welfare, public facilities and public utilities that have been 
used by illegal immigrants.

One Public Health Ministry official told the press that illegal 
immigrants' medical expenses cost the ministry as much as 100 million 
baht a year.

"That's just the medical part," he said.

Will the repatriation policy truly save Thailand a lot of money? 

Jobs for illegal workers:

After the resolution was passed by the Cabinet on 25 June 1996 and 
approved by the Government on 6 August 1996, another resolution was 
passed to describe the 11 job classifications allowed for illegal 
immigrants.

Agriculture

Fisheries

Fishery-related occupations such as washing marine products.

Construction

Mining 

Marine transportation 

Production such as fish factories, tobacco, saw mills, rice mills, etc.

House work

Salt farming

Jar and brick making

Other jobs in relation to the "production of goods" not stated in the 
cabinet resolution could be approved by the Minister of Labour and 
Welfare

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