Chiang Mai (Mizzima) – Thailand's Labor Minister has denied accusations that the Thai government discriminates against Burmese migrant workers by denying them access to a workers compensation fund.
Paitoon Kaewthong, Thailand's Labor Minister, said the Thai government provides equal and fair treatment to all migrant workers from neighboring countries without discrimination.
"In principle, if they registered to work in Thailand legally, then the claims would fall under Thailand’s social security system and they can ask for compensation from that source,” said Paitoon, in response to rights groups arguments that Burmese migrants are being wrongfully denied access to the workers compensation fund, according to a report in Thailand’s National News Bureau on Tuesday.
Somchai Homlaor, a rights lawyer from the Human Rights and Development Foundation, told Mizzima that a joint statement on Monday from his organization and the Thai Labor Solidarity Committee has already been submitted to U.N. Special Rapporteur Homayoun Alizadeh, the United Nation's High Commissioner for Human Rights Regional Representative for Southeast Asia and would be further sent to higher bodies including the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.
Homlaor added that in the case of Nang Noom, a Shan migrant worker from Burma who was paralyzed from the waist down following an accident at the construction site for the Shangri-la Hotel in Chiang Mai on December 4, 2006, the victim has a right to fiscal recourse through a government compensation program.
He added that one solution to this problem could be that the government provides opportunities for migrant workers to access the social security system in the same manner as Thai workers, a standard principle of labor rights according to Homlaor.
Presently, the social security system mandates that only migrant workers who have passports can receive compensation from the workers compensation fund, however few Burmese migrant workers hold passports.
A labor activist in Chiang Mai, where an estimated hundred thousand Shan workers are employed, said there are many cases, primarily stemming from the construction business, in which migrant workers are denied just compensation for work related injuries.
“The cases we found come from accidents on construction sites which cause death or serious injury such, as blindness and paralysis. But some employers deny that the injured are their workers because they don’t want to be responsible,” the source explained.
“In addition, there are several cases that the provincial social security office has rejected, arguing the workers are undocumented, even if there exists witnesses and evidence that can prove the employer hired the injured worker,” he added.
The Thai government is currently in the process of expediting a nationality verification process for migrant workers, encouraging them to apply for passports and a visa at major checkpoints such as Kohthong, Mae Sai and Mae Sot, in order to control illegal migration into the kingdom and to persuade Thai workers to take up jobs commonly filled by migrants.
