• 
• 

 "I don't see any party yet," said labour expert Sakdina Chatrakul na Ayudhya. "They're not different and their policies to help workers are superficial. Most major parties are neo-liberal and pay little interest to the labour sector. I don't see any party preparing a labour expert in the party line-up to take the post of Minister of Labour."

 Labour researcher Bandit Thanachaisaettawut of the Arom Pongpangan Foundation agrees, although he thinks many parties could have policies that would please workers.

"The Democrat Party is the only party which has forwarded me its labour policy outline," he said. "They may expand social security to cover workers in the non-formal sector and elevate the protection of women and child labourers."

However, Bandit remains sceptical. "I think many policies are about election campaigning and the chance of them following through after being elected are slim, especially if there isn't enough pressure on them."

What's more, Bandit sees many of the labour policies promoted by various parties are more like social work or populist policies.

 Sakdina and Bandit both agree that no strong political party will represent workers for years to come for several reasons.

 "There is no ideology-based organising effort. This can only succeed when society accepts a socialist ideology to various degrees. We need social democrats," said Sakdina. "The unionisation rate is very low, just 1.4 per cent out of 35.5 million formal and informal workers."

 Many can't vote in the city or province they are working in, adds Bandit, thus diluting their votes as a block as they have to return to their home provinces to vote, while in the rural provinces, the agricultural issues dominate.

 Bandit added that during the decades of Thai dictatorships, big business and the middle class grew but the labour movement was squashed. "There's no mass party representing workers," Bandit pointed out. "Thai politics today is still about groups of politicians more than a political party as an institution. Power is centred on the party leader and the financier.

 "I don't see any parties being sincere to workers," he said, adding that none of them has offered to decentralise the social security fund, which is now worth Bt400 billion and subject to government abuse.

 While attempts have been made by some groups to promote small labour-oriented parties, Bandit sees the effort as more of an act of well-intended intellectuals, which fail to truly galvanise popular labour consciousness.

However, Sakdina thinks any such efforts should be supported.

If Thai workers are without real representation, both believe that migrant labours from neighbouring countries like Burma are in an even more precarious situation.

 "I'm worried about them. The mass media is fanning ultra-nationalism and portray them as a problem," said Sakdina.

 "What I saw of Democrat's policy on migrant workers, it is to make them legal in order to prevent them causing security problems and prevent them from stealing jobs from Thai workers. This is a typical state view," said Bandit. "What they should do is to offer them protection. Many child labourers are migrant workers."

By Pravit Rojanaphruk

The Nation