Labor policy and administration

Facing international pressure for failing to stop human trafficking in its seafood sector, Thailand promised almost a year ago to compensate victims of slavery and industry leaders vowed to bring all shrimp processing in-house. That hasn’t always happened. Instead, some formerly enslaved shrimp peelers have been ...

Greater connectivity between Japan and Cambodia is tightening economic links between the two countries while catalysing Japan’s ambitions to develop a chain of industrial complexes that cut a tract through the Lower Mekong region. Officials at Japan External Trade Organisation, Japan’s development agency, say Cambodia’s economic ...

Myanmar’s preeminent trade union confederation has called on the government to take action to protect migrant workers from exploitation and unfair treatment abroad. Daw Htwe Htwe Thein, a director of the Confederation of Trade Unions of Myanmar, called for stronger regulation of employment agents who recruit ...

Tun Tun Win and his coworkers from Burma thought life was fine at the Thammakaset chicken farm in central Thailand, where they reared hundreds of thousands of birds for export to the European Union. The migrants clocked 20 hours a day for 40 days straight, shoveling ...

The Ministry of Labour on September 12 reminded an estimated 380,000 Cambodian migrant workers in Thailand who hold temporary work permits – also known as pink cards – to apply for more permanent documents when registration opens online later this month. In its letter, the ministry reminded ...

The Labour Ministry put forth a suggested figure of $148.20 for next year’s minimum wage as tripartite wage talks started on Friday, leading some unions to say that they would consider lowering their demand of $179 in hopes of reaching a compromise. Kicking off the negotiations, ...

ASEAN will deal with the narcotics problem by focusing more on healthcare and jobs for drug addicts as part of the bloc’s 10-year anti-drug action plan, says Justice Minister Paiboon Koomchaya. He was speaking on August 24 as he chaired the 37th meeting of ASEAN senior ...

Government officials and union groups on August 23 cast doubts on the findings issued by the industry body for the nation’s garment and footwear manufacturers, challenging its claim that mounting investor concerns had forced dozens of local factories out of business and resulted in a sharp ...

Among nearly 46 million people living and working in slave-like conditions worldwide, an estimated 9,200 are in Singapore, according to a global index on 167 countries compiled by a human rights group. The lower the ranking, the less prevalence of “modern slavery” in a country. The ...

The government’s Cambodian Human Rights Committee on August 9 sent a request to its counterpart in Thailand to help push the Thai government to implement safety measures to protect Cambodian fishermen working in Thailand in often slave-like conditions, a request advocates said yesterday should have been ...