Over 400 sacked Myanmar migrants have filed a complaint at the Thai labour rights protection department for action to be taken against the Thai snack factory Taokaenoi from Ladlumkaew, Pathumthani township.

According to Thai based migrants rights group Aid Alliance Committee (AAC) and workers, the migrants had filed a complaint as they had been sacked without compensation.

“Workers were stopped from working as there weren’t enough jobs but no suitable compensation was given,” AAC member Ko Ye Min told The Myanmar Times yesterday.

He also said that all workers had to pay the factory official 2500 baht for hiring jobs and they also had to pay between 8500 baht and 11,000 baht to get work-permits, but the migrants had not been provided with any work-permit documents.

“We have filed a case at the township labour rights protection department for workers to be given the fees taken by the factory officials and to be given suitable compensation for losing their jobs,” AAC member Ko Ye Min said.

The dispute is scheduled to be examined on May 11 (today) at the Department of Labour Protection in Pathumthani, according to AAC and migrant workers.

“Today, factory officials have asked us to sign if we are willing to return to work. They have also applied for work-permits for us. But, most of the workers have refused to sign. We can’t trust them anymore. They failed to provide us with work-permits although we were asked for around 100,000 baht,” Ko Zaw Hein, a migrant worker, told The Myanmar Times yesterday.

He was employed by the snack factory four months ago and has not been provided with work-permit documents although he was asked to pay 8500 baht for work-permit fees and 2500 baht for employment as a factory worker.

According to AAC and workers, most sacked workers are pink-card holders and some are working at the snack factory as MOU workers. There are about 500 Myanmar migrant workers at the factory who have been working there for over two years.

Workers also said that the factory used to retrench workers very often because factory officials and their brokers make a bigger income from migrants by firing old workers and hiring new ones, thus enabling them to charge hiring fees to the tune of 2500 baht and work-permit fees at 8500 baht.

Myanmar embassy officials did not respond to The Myanmar Times yesterday when the paper attempted to get a comment on the issue.

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