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Dr Ruth Pearson is an Emeritus Professor of Development Studies at the University of Leeds. She was previously Chair of Women and Development at the Institute for Social Studies in the Hague. Dr Kyoko Kusakabe is an Associate Professor of Gender and Development Studies in the School of Environment, Resources and Development at the Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand. 

For issue #83 of The Internationalist, we draw from their landmark book, Thailand’s Hidden Workforce: Burmese Migrant Women Factory Workers (Bloomsbury, 2012). In this excerpt, they delve into the history of Thailand's garment and textile industries, which have increasingly relied on cheap migrant labor, particularly during economic downturns.

The garment and textile industries, which have universally been sectors where women workers are concentrated, are at the heart of the demand for cheap migrant labour in Thailand, and it is these sectors that have responded to incentives and opportunities to shift production to cheaper border areas. Mae Sot in Tak province, in particular, has witnessed a dramatic increase in both the number of factories and the number of workers employed. 

Although industrialists were enthusiastic about the new policies, anxiety about the effects of hiring cheap migrants persisted, with many commentators reminding the government that concessions should be confined to border areas so as not to distort employment and wage structures in the wider national labour market: 

"It is believed that hiring more irregular migrants in this sector may distort the employment and wage structure of the labour market as a whole. Therefore, the allowance should be an area-specific issue in this sector. Only establishments in the provinces, along the border (or those currently under the BOI’s promotional privilege) should be permitted to employ irregular migrants but definitely not those in the inner provinces of Thailand."

Growth in border industries has continued, although more recent data indicate that there was a slowdown in growth in 2008/9 as Thailand absorbed the shocks of the global financial crisis of 2007/8. In 2009, the Thai Garment Manufacturers’ Association (TGMA) complained of severe labour shortages, and suggested that the garment industry in Thailand was now looking to invest in neighbouring countries. Vallop Vitanakorn, the TGMA secretary general, told the Bangkok Post23 that ‘right now we have a shortage of 50,000 to 60,000 people in the industry and this will definitely reach 60,000 by next year.’ Certainly Thailand’s reliance on cheap migrant labour for its export industries seems set to continue. But at the same time there is a strong desire to contain such workers in specific parts of the country where they will not be able to affect — or infect — the rest of the economy and the labour force, much of which had continued to enjoy rising living standards. This was especially true of the Thaksin regime in the period 2001—06, which successfully targeted social and economic expenditure on rural areas. This meant that a relocation of industry to rural areas in search of cheap labour was no longer a feasible strategy for Thai industrialists. Even during the period of the 1990s’ crisis, rural Thais were unwilling to work for the low wages paid by the border factories, having grown accustomed to a better standard of living, which has been enhanced by sustained improvements in education and the extension of government health and other services. 

Thai workers have also been somewhat cushioned from the effects of the crisis compared to migrant workers, with schemes to retrain retrenched workers returning to their villages of origin, combined with credit for those wanting to start small businesses and support for peri-urban enterprises linked to the marketing of agricultural products and handicrafts, in the context of the ‘Buy Thai, Thai Help Thai’ policies. New regulations offering increased severance pay and unemployment benefits for Thai workers in the formal sector also aimed to help mitigate the impact of the crisis on the Thai industrial workforce, although women in informal employment were left out of these schemes. 

There was no cushion for migrant workers, whether they were registered or not. The immediate response of the Thai government after the crisis was to mitigate the impact in terms of rising unemployment for Thai workers by repatriating ‘illegal, alien workers’. In 1998, 300,000 foreign workers (mainly Burmese) were deported, in spite of protests from both local employers and human rights activists. Thai local politicians, who were also owners of business enterprises that had employed migrant workers, did not support the repatriation policy, which was also strongly opposed by rice millers and fishing-sector entrepreneurs. Moreover, unemployed Thais were mainly concentrated in the central regions of the country, whilst foreign workers tended to be more dispersed and difficult for the authorities to round up. In any case, it was found that those who were forcibly removed tended to return illegally to Thailand as soon as they got the opportunity. In the end, the repatriation policy was abandoned, with support from local exporters; the state went back to its previous, more tolerant, position on the recruitment of foreign workers. 

It is a widely held view in Thailand that the much publicised repatriation of migrant workers in 1997–98 was a political exercise to persuade the Thai population that the government was committed to protect the employment and rights of its own citizens, in line with a surge of populist nationalism that followed the economic shocks of the late 1990s. The early stages of the crisis 

"[p]rovoked two historical comparisons. The first was to the defeat of Ayutthaya by the Burmese in 1767. The conventional shorthand for this event, Sia Krung (the fall of the city), lent itself easily to metaphors of an urban economic crisis. The second reference was to the period of colonial threats to Siam’s existence in the 1890s." 

The popular movements that emerged after the crisis were considered to be ‘focus[ed] inward rather than outward’ — not necessarily in the sense of rejecting external forces, but more to cultivate Thainess and a sense of community. That period saw a number of popular manifestations in support of this. For instance, people were encouraged to donate foreign currency, or even gold or silver jewellery, to help pay off the national debt as part of the pha pa chuay chat (donation to help the nation), which was championed by well-known Buddhist monks. The ‘Thai Help Thai’ campaign was designed to promote the production and consumption of goods made in Thailand to help the country weather the financial crisis. Although nationalism did not develop into an aggressive political force, as in other countries, these pro-Thai nationalistic sentiments formed the context of public opinion in 1997–98 when a very visible policy of deporting migrant workers was pursued. 

However, return was not a viable option for many of the migrant workers facing the threat of deportation. In 1997 the Burmese economy deteriorated in the face of a number of external shocks. Not only were the country’s trade with and investment in neighbouring countries hit by the Asian financial crisis; it also faced a recently instituted ban by the USA on new investment. The resultant rise in urban unemployment, along with government measures such as the forced selling of agricultural products much below market price, meant that returning home was not a feasible option for migrants, whose motivation to work in Thailand was as much economic as it was political. 

The 2008 global financial crisis did not have such a devastating effect on Thailand as the previous crisis, though 2009 was marked by bankruptcies, lay-offs and reductions in the length of the working day. For example, it was reported that during January fifty business enterprises shut down and at least 25,000 factory workers were laid off, with double that number having to accept wage cuts due to decreased working hours. Once again the government chose to focus on migrant workers to indicate its support for the Thai population; in January 2009 labour minister Paitoon Kaewthong announced that the registration of thousands of foreign workers — a scheme that had just been overhauled — would be delayed to protect Thai jobs.

Excerpted from Thailand's Hidden Workforce: Burmese Migrant Women Factory Workers by Ruth Pearson and Kyoko Kusakabe, published by Zed Books. Copyright © 2012 by Ruth Pearson and Kyoko Kusakabe. Used with permission. All rights reserved.

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