Labor policy and administration

Thai-Cambodian discussions at the recent ASEAN summit put labour issues on the table. Despite the pleasant chat, migrant workers in Thailand have yet to see what, if any, measures the authorities will adopt to help address their problems. In a bilateral meeting on the sideline of ...

t 3.28am on 29 June 2021, Xu Mingjian crept out of a dorm room inside a gated compound in Sihanoukville, Cambodia, and made his way to the second floor, where his friend, another victim of trafficking, was waiting. The two had hatched a desperate plan to ...

Garment workers at Thailand’s Brilliant Alliance factory were granted leave, only to learn their employer had shut down when they returned to their worksite in early March 2021.  “Everyone was abandoned and never went back to work, there was nothing from the company about compensation,” said ...

In a position statement, the ETI points to a Commission of Inquiry into the decline of workers’ rights in Myanmar established by the International Labour Organization (ILO) in March, noting such a move is the ILO’s highest-level investigative procedure which is generally set up when a member state ...

Chhim Sithar knew she would be arrested when she arrived at the site of a protest organised by employees of the NagaWorld casino.  Police violently grabbed and arrested the union leader when she attempted to join the demonstration by striking workers in Phnom Penh on 4 ...

Thailand has launched a pilot program to test, vaccinate and isolate factory workers to limit Covid-related disruptions to its export-driven manufacturing industry, one of the few bright spots in an economy crushed by the virus.  The “Factory Sandbox” initiative aims to protect 3 million jobs and ...

Working hours in the ASEAN region are projected to only partially recover in 2021 and 2022 according to new research by the International Labour Organization (ILO). COVID-19 and the ASEAN labour market: Impact and policy response highlights the heavy impact of the pandemic on ASEAN economies ...

Sex worker activists are among the most at risk defenders of human rights in the world, facing multiple threats and violent attacks, an extensive investigation has found. The research, published today by human rights organisation Front Line Defenders, found that their visibility as sex workers who are advocates ...

Labour rights advocates have urged the authorities to vaccinate migrant domestic helpers to protect households against Covid-19. Adisorn Kerdmongkol, a member of the Migrant Network Group (MNG), told an online discussion organised by the House committee on labour on Monday that more than 100,000 migrant workers are ...

Thailand has been downgraded by the United States in a global report on human trafficking because the Southeast Asian nation’s government “does not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking.” In its 2021 Trafficking in Persons Report, in which Thailand has been downgraded ...