Mr. Phaithoon Kaeothong, Minister of Labour, gave an interview
Mr. Phaithoon Kaeothong, Minister of Labour, gave an interview after publishing a statement regarding minister of labour’s performance and direction that the government has set up a policy to solve the problems by coordinating with destination country to take part in solving the problems. The policy aims to legalize employment system.
There are 2 approaches; first period emphasizes on a completion of alien workers registration and repatriation of the registered workers. The second period is changing a status of alien workers who registered in the first period to be legal migrant workers as well as negotiating with Myanmar, Lao, Cambodian to complete nationality verification.
The cabinet resolution on 19 January 2010 approved a number of 382,541 migrant alien workers who were allowed to work in Thailand according to the resolution on 18 December 2009 and number of 933,391 migrant alien workers who already registered by 28 February 2010 must completely fill in the form within 28 February 2010 and must go through nationality verification within 28 February 2010. All of alien workers who completed nationality verification can continually work for another 2 years and can renew for 2 years totally 4 years.
Minister of Labour stated that nationality verification aims to encourage destination country to feature in resolving the problems and legalize employment system. At present, 1,315,932 alien workers, divided into 1,079,991 Myanmar workers, 111,039 Lao workers, 124,902 Cambodian workers, who were allowed to work according to cabinet resolution on 18 December 2009 and 26 May 2009 submitted personal information registration form at Department of Provincial Administration (Tor.ror 38/1) 1,059,578 people, and applied work permit at Department of Employment for 9333,391 people and 126,187 people remained unapplied. The Department of Employment will gather all information and addresses to send to Security and Suppression Affairs so as to further proceed with the case. The alien workers who failed to complete nationality verification would not be allowed renewing work permit and shall be repatriated. In addition, the employers and workplaces will be guilty according to Alien Working Act B.E.2551 prescribing that the employers and workplaces in Article 27 who illegally employed alien workers shall be fined not more than 10,000-100,000 baht per 1 alien worker employment. Also, alien workers working without work permit shall be imprisoned not more than 5 years or fined up to 2,000-100,000 baht or both.
Regarding Myanmar nationality verification, there were 26,902 alien workers came to receive nationality verification at all 3 Nationality Verification Coordination Centers classifying into Tha kee lek located opposite of Maesai, Chiangrai Province for 7,899 worker, at Meawdee located Maesod, Tak Province for 10,461 workers and Koh Song located in Muang, Ranong Province for 8,542 workers. continue
http://eng.mol.go.th/infocus_Feb1910.html
