Strengthening democracy in Thailand

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محتوى الصفحة: Home > مجلة النقل الدولي "Transport International" > Issue 36 - July 2009 > Strengthening democracy

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Transport unions in Thailand are much stronger, thanks to an ITF education project, says Sangam Tripathy

Unions in Thailand have faced difficult times. In a country with a chequered political history, replete with military coups and dictatorships, the trade union movement of Thailand has been a major victim, left weak and fragmented. Workers have been denied rights or given restricted rights to form unions or defend and promote their interests through meaningful collective bargaining.

In the state enterprises sector, transport and other workers’ organisations were not even recognised as trade unions up until the year 2000 when they were able to push forward and get the government to enact the State Enterprise Labour Relation Act, which restored legal union rights.

The 1998 currency crisis had seriously affected the transport sectors, especially Thai Airlines, road transport, railways and port sector. The government undertook massive job cuts, layoffs, cutbacks in employee benefits, privatisation measures and strict control over union activities.

All this meant that transport unions were in a bad way at the start of the decade.

“Unions had weak organisational structures, a poor financial situation, almost a total lack of union skills and absence of basic understanding and commitment to union philosophy and ideology,” says Somsak Kosaisook, former president of SRUT (railway workers’ union) and the first chair of the ITF Coordination Committee of Thai Unions.

It was in this climate that the ITF launched a trade union education project for transport unions, involving 10 affiliated unions in Thailand. The Finnish transport workers’ union (AKT) and the Finnish Trade Union Solidarity Centre (SASK) funded the project. The target groups included union leaders, educators, activists, members and transport workers.

Training union leaders

The ITF and SASK decided to target the existing membership of ITF Thai unions.

In all, 14 per cent (6,874 workers) of this membership participated in the 228 basic trade union awareness programmes over the eight years. This included 1,517 (22 per cent) women workers. A total of 145 union activists/local leaders and 60 trainers were trained in basic leadership programmes.

The programme helped trade unionists to develop their skills. For example, Sarawut Sriprayak, president LU-ETA (the highway toll collection employees’ union) was a committee member when he participated in the leadership training seminar. With the knowledge and skills he learnt, he was able to get elected as general secretary and is now the president.

Working together

A key focus of the education activities was to encourage the unions to work together. The ITF Delhi office asked the ITF Coordination Committee of Thai Unions to coordinate and allocate education programme activities. A project coordinator supervised these activities. Over the years the outcomes of training and education activities led the coordinating committee to take up organisational issues and problems of fellow affiliated unions and the planning of joint industrial activities – joining forces to support solidarity action through effective campaigns and also to be active as members of the global fraternity of transport unions represented by the ITF, ready to act and extend solidarity on transport workers’ issues.

Chutima Boonjai, leader of ITF-Thai Women’s Wing, said: “The Thai Airways union (TG) has been at the forefront of leading anti-sexism campaigns in support of their cabin crew members. The ITF Thai Women’s Wing has also led many successful anti sexual harassment campaigns and discussions in the education programmes played a big role.”

Organising Thailand: looking ahead

Almost all ITF affiliates in Thailand represent transport workers in the public sector. So a big future project is the unionisation of private sector transport workers. The potential is very big in the road freight transport and logistics sector, private sector port terminals, for example at the Laem Chabang port and related workers in container freight stations, storage and handling facilities as well as aviation workers employed by the private sector low cost carriers such as Air Asia Thailand, Nok Air, Bangkok Airways to name a few, in addition to the air cargo operation workers of DHL and Fed Ex. Fisheries is also a sector that has been identified with the potential to organise.

In 2007 a new union, the Transport Workers’ Union of Thailand, affiliated to the ITF. This union organises private sector transport workers in some logistics companies. It is still in its formative stages and facing lots of resistance and problems from employers, including personnel victimisation. All present affiliates of the ITF are strongly behind the efforts of this union to help organise and make initial forays in reaching out to organise the private sector transport workers. There are also growing segments of unorganised workers in state enterprises. Later in 2009 we plan to organise a needs assessment and planning discussion with affiliates to see how future education activities can help develop and consolidate organising work in this field.

What did the ITF education project achieve?

According to an independent evaluation the ITF-SASK education project made a big difference to union capacity in Thailand. The report listed some of the achievements.

The eight years of education activities have definitely contributed to the overall strengthening of the resistance capacities of the unions. Many areas have been improved, including the financial capacity of affiliated unions, union membership, the functioning of union offices, grievance handling and representation of workers’ issues and the interaction of unions with academic institutions and individuals.

“Labour is slowly but surely gaining recognition in the Thai civil society and political arena. In the transport sector for sure, trade union education has contributed positively in improving the overall labour participation and in developing and strengthening democracy and democratic institutions in the unions,” concludes the evaluation report.

The project activities have made a positive contribution to the development of education infrastructure in unions and training educators in modern workers’ education techniques and processes. Most unions now have at least a vice president level office bearer in charge of education.

Project activities have made both direct and indirect contributions to the organisational gains. Unions were able to educate grass-root workers on the principles and practice of democratic trade unionism, and a better understanding of roles and responsibilities among elected committee and subcommittee members through the training programmes. There is a positive and encouraging development of second-generation leaders.

The campaigns to drive competencies of the unions have improved. The strong results of the campaigns could be seen in the participation of unions in campaigns on transport worker issues like restructuring and privatisation. Unions have also participated enthusiastically in international campaigns led by the ITF, including rail action days on safety and public investment in developing railways, road transport action weeks against issues like cutting down fatigue, and the observance of women’s action days.

Sangam Tripathy works in the education department of the ITF.

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Issue 36 - July 2009

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