General labour standards
Websites/Multiple Documents
Source/publisher:
International labour Organization
Date of entry/update:
2010-11-30
Grouping:
Websites/Multiple Documents
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Individual Documents
Sub-title:
They face military conscription in Myanmar and are banned from Thailand for two years.
Description:
"Thailand has detained and deported more than 144,000 Myanmar citizens over the past three months, its labor ministry said, in a crackdown aimed at weeding out “job seekers” who use the turmoil in their country as an excuse to seek opportunities in Thailand, a Thai police chief said.
Myanmar nationals were the largest group detained in the campaign to round up illegal workers launched in June that involved inspections of nearly 15,000 businesses, economic zones and areas where job-seekers congregate, the Ministry of Labor said on the weekend.
Workers from Myanmar play a vital role in the Thai economy with about two million of them legally employed in areas such as agriculture, fishing and the service sector, but labor activists say many more arrive illegally hoping to find work.
Another factor behind the arrival of many more young Myanmar citizens in Thailand this year is a junta conscription law that came into effect in April, three years after the military seized power in a coup, as it struggles to fend off advances by insurgents battling to end military rule.
Assistant Thai police chief Lt. Gen. Itthipol Achariyapradit told Radio Free Asia that Thailand had to act against people who entered illegally, some of whom, he believed, were “opportunistic job seekers” citing conflict at home as an excuse to come to Thailand.
“For those without passports or crossing illegally, we have no choice but to detain them. We can sort refugees or political migrants out from job seekers,” Ittipol said.
“But if the situation remains unsafe we have to delay the process.”
He did not say if he thought being conscripted into the Myanmar army was an unsafe situation.
Despite Thailand’s need for migrant workers, it has been tightening up procedures for them, closing offices where migrants can get vital paperwork processed and granting the junta, through its embassy, greater authority over the fate of its migrant population in Thailand.
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‘More reliable’
People being deported in the crackdown will be banned from re-entering Thailand for two years under the ministry’s rules and they also face the risk of being conscripted upon their arrival home, said Moe Gyo, chairperson of the Thai social aid organization Joint Action Committee for Burmese Affairs.
“Deported people are being recruited under the military’s conscription law and they’re worried,” he said.
Myanmar military authorities forcibly recruited dozens of people deported after serving time in jail in the southern Thai province of Ranong, relatives told RFA this month.
“We can’t say a similar incident won’t happen again. People returning from abroad were extorted and coerced in the conscription process,” Moe Gyo said.
One Thai employer was dismayed by the crackdown.
“It affects us a lot because if they have to go back and can’t return how can we find replacements,” said a hotel owner in the border province of Kanchanaburi who has hired undocumented people from Myanmar for years.
“We hire them not because they’re cheap labor – we pay them the same as Thais – but because they’re more reliable than Thai workers.”
Thailand’s Ministry of Labor did not respond to requests for comment from RFA.
While Thailand documents more than two million Myanmar workers in the kingdom legally, some labor groups estimate as many as seven million people from Myanmar are in Thailand.
The ministry said that in addition to 144,261 Myanmar nationals detained in the crackdown, there were 29,448 Cambodians, 12,258 from Laos, 117 from Vietnam and 6,196 from other countries..."
Source/publisher:
"Radio Free Asia" (USA)
Date of publication:
2024-08-30
Date of entry/update:
2024-08-30
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Labour issues in Burma, General labour standards, Human Rights and international relations
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Sub-title:
Thousands of workers in Yangon on Sunday took to the streets to demand an increase in the minimum wage to K9800 ($6.66) ahead of the review of the country’s new minimum wage law.
Description:
"Ko Thwin Aung, chair of Myan Mhu garment workers union, said the current minimum wage of 4800 is below the cost of living in the country. “The current rate set by the government is not enough for a family of four,” he said. “Commodity prices, as well as hostel charges, are rapidly rising up. So, we will ask for reasonable wage. For a family of four, if three do not work and depend on only one, it is impossible to cope with the current rate. So, we will demand K9800."
He explained the amount was reached after consulting 1200 garment workers in Hlaing Tharyar Township starting from October 2019. Nearly 10000 garment workers from 20 labour organisations marched in Hlaing Tharyar to dramatise their demand.
According to section 5(h) of Minimum Wages Law, that rate is to be defined every two year, but in the second time rate specification, it took two years and eight months before the minimum was set.
"Back in 2018, the minimum wage was set at 4800, but prices of rice are going up now,” said Ma Malar, another labour union leader who joined the protest. “I want the government to take consideration of the welfare of the workers when they set the minimum wage.”..."
Source/publisher:
"Myanmar Times" (Myanmar)
Date of publication:
2020-01-19
Date of entry/update:
2020-01-20
Grouping:
Individual Documents
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Description:
One of the most important tools available to the ILO in the fight against child labour is the adoption of International Labour Conventions and Recommendations. The ILO adopted its first Convention on child labour in 1919,the year of its foundation. Over the years, a further nine Conventions on the minimum age of admission to employment were adopted, covering among others agriculture and fishing. The most recent and comprehensive ILO standards on child labour are the Minimum Age Convention, 1973 (No.138),and its accompanying Recommendation (No.146),and the Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention,1999 (No.182)and its accompanying Recommendation (No.190).
Source/publisher:
International labour Organization
Date of entry/update:
2010-11-30
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
General labour standards
Language:
English
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Description:
Articles 6, 7, 8
Source/publisher:
Office of United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
Date of entry/update:
2010-11-30
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
General labour standards
Language:
English
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Source/publisher:
International labour Organization
Date of entry/update:
2010-11-30
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
General labour standards
Language:
English, Espanol, Francais
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