Sacked Myanmar migrants in Thailand to get compensation, help to return home

10 April 2023
Sacked Myanmar migrants in Thailand to get compensation, help to return home
Photo: Myanmar Labour Attache Office/Facebook

The employer of over 1,000 Myanmar migrant workers who were sacked from an electronics factory in Thailand are in the process of being paid compensation and then these workers will be sent back to Myanmar, via the Myawaddy town border crossing.

The 1,057 migrant workers were sacked from the factory in Samut Sakhon Province and then they were paid compensation ranging from 19,415 Baht minimum to 96,369 Baht maximum as per the law.

The Labour Attache Office of the Myanmar embassy in Thailand said that the employer would give travel expenses to the workers who wished to go back home and they would arrange the transportation to the border town Mae Sot, and the travel expenses would be calculated based on the distances to their home towns.

These migrant workers worked in Cal-Comp Electronics factory in Phet Buri and Samut Sakhon Provinces in three shifts. They staged protest demonstrations to their employers as they would like to work in two shifts only and after that this the Labour Attache Office in Bangkok Myanmar embassy mediated between them.

Then the factory informed these workers that they must reduce the workers for one shift if the workers wanted to work only in two shifts in the mediation with employees and embassy.

After that the workers in Phet Buri factory agreed with the factory in mediation but 85% of the workers in Samut Sakhon reiterated their demand for working in two shifts only. Finally, these 1,057 Myanmar workers were sacked from their jobs.

Currently, Thai and Myanmar labour agencies are reportedly collecting the lists of those who wish to work in other factories in Thailand, those who wish to return home, those who wish to get a job transfer letter (seeking new jobs and other wishes).

The Office of Labour Attache of the Myanmar embassy issued an announcement, which says that the office would coordinate and mediate after getting these lists so that the workers need to contact Thai-Myanmar labour agencies as they wish to be listed in these lists.

The Labour Rights activists and volunteers said that under the MOU, the foreign jobs placement agencies must find work for the workers sacked from their previous jobs and the new jobs must be acceptable and satisfactory to the sacked workers.

Foreign jobs placement agencies indicate that the number of migrant workers going to Thailand officially with an MOU was on average over 10,000 every month.