Burmese get 74 baht for a 12 hour day at Thai sweatshops

"In a Thai border town, Burmese workers toil in penury
By Ed Cropley, Reuters, Monday, June 4, 2007

MAE SOT, Thailand: The Thai government grandly calls it an "export processing zone." More appropriate terms for this town, nestled in jungle-clad hills on the border with Myanmar, might be "sweatshop" or "labor camp."
Connected to Myanmar by a bridge that opened a decade ago, the once-sleepy town is home to 235 mainly garment factories, staffed by 36,000 legally registered migrant workers - and at least four times that number of illegal ones, according to local labor advocates.
Despite labor laws guaranteeing legal migrants basic rights like a standard eight-hour working day, paid overtime and a minimum wage, the regulations are universally flouted, interviews with workers revealed.
Conditions are harsh in the factories, most of them Chinese- or Taiwanese-owned and set up with government investment incentives. Clothes are exported to the United States and Japan, among other markets, workers said.
Typically, migrants work 12-hour days, get one day off a month and are paid around half the province's 147 baht, or $4.25, daily minimum wage......
Full article http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/06/04/ ... /sweat.php (http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/06/04/business/sweat.php)

via Dick on baht stop

Hmm...wonder what they'd make back home in Burma?

[Uranus]

Burma they make nothing as there arenтАЩt enough jobs. That is why they are exploited.

What's not said is that these places typically provide food and lodging, which makes their compensation package equal to minimum wage. They are not also paying tax on their wages, as a Thai worker would.

Anyway, I think that if anyone bothered to ask the workers, they'd say they were grateful to have the jobs and happy with their compensation.

Of course, that doesn't mean anything to change the self-righteous, sputtering bleeding hearts out there.

What's not said is that these places typically provide food and lodging, which makes their compensation package equal to minimum wage. They are not also paying tax on their wages, as a Thai worker would.

Anyway, I think that if anyone bothered to ask the workers, they'd say they were grateful to have the jobs and happy with their compensation.

Of course, that doesn't mean anything to change the self-righteous, sputtering bleeding hearts out there.


BG,

I don't think they would say they were happy, I think they'd say they had no choice! There is a vast difference.

A lot of Thais,[ although by no means all,] don't want these jobs, and would certainly prefer to spend an evening dreaming up scams, going to the disco, begging gold and mobiles, eating well, sleeping well and getting 1,500 baht a night for the privilege of, in a lot of cases, a hand job.

Even better if the Foreigner gets pissed, they don't even have to do that and swear blind in the morning, they did!!!

Most of you must accept, times are a changing and you do not get anywhere near the service, friendship, personal attention that you used to get a few years ago, and for less money!

Well, yes. I would call that progress. Boys in the sixties used to be happy with a second-hand cast-off t-shirt in exchange for a full day of "take care". Thai society, standard of living, and economy, have come a long way since then.

[puckered_penguin]

Isn't migrant labor nearly always lower paid than the local labor and parallels, albeit on a different scale, the Hispanics in the USA and the Easten Europeans in parts of the EU.

If anyone is interested you can register with the labor office in Chonburi and acquire a permit for a Burmese maid (m or f). Personally I think that there are some stunning looking Burmese guys out there.

Of course they are paid less, universally. Even in wowpow's home country, where illegals certainly make half or less of the legal minimum wage. Yet they are happy to be there and be employed. The only ones fretting are misguided do-gooders like wowpow.

[Aunty]

A lot of Thais,[ although by no means all,] don't want these jobs, and would certainly prefer to spend an evening dreaming up scams, going to the disco, begging gold and mobiles, eating well, sleeping well and getting 1,500 baht a night for the privilege of, in a lot of cases, a hand job.

Even better if the Foreigner gets pissed, they don't even have to do that and swear blind in the morning, they did!!!

When you put it like that (and you are right to do so) there must be a lot of deeply sad, lonely and empty white men out there roaming Farangistan's endless cold streets. By all accounts they are ripe for exploitation too.

Ever been to Pattaya?

... even in Britain and its all relative to that country. We have it on our doorstep, poverty that is. It's the people that exploit them that are the bad boys.

[billyhouston]

In Shan State, Myanmar, a government employee such as a teacher or policeman makes Kyat 33000 per month. Someone who can find work on a building site makes about Kyat 1500 per day. Rice is cheaper than in Thailand at Kyat 1000 (=Bht25) for 4 litres.

Myanmar people working in Thailand, be it legally or illegally, are routinely exploited by Thais especially the police. In spite of this (which makes my blood boil) they all say that it may be bad, but it's far better than in Shan. The Burmese army is intent on ethnic cleansing the Shan from their homeland, burning villages and, where the villagers refuse to leave, the occupants too. At the moment life is even more difficult due to food shortages brought about by army activities.

Illegal Shan waiters, that I know, in Chiang Mai restaurants make Bht 3000 per month for very long hours and the owner takes the tips! For each minute late they are fined Bht 1.

Nakhon Sawan Sugar Pipe pickers earning for a 12 hour day 70 Baht. No food sponsors, but they can eat the sugar Pipes free and some of the plant owners coming with there 600 Mercedes Benz and the paying the wages by them selfes. Amazing!

It’s all about greed:

Illegal immigrants are getting exploited everywhere. They all do the low paid and often hazardous work nobody else would touch:
Mexicanos working on farms, sweat shops or building sites in US
Africans working in heavily contaminated pesticide vegetable farms in Spain or Italy
Afghans working in Iran
Chinese workers in Hong Kong sweat shops
Bangladeshi, Pakistani, or Indians working in UAE
Cambodians and Burmese working in Thailand or
Albanians mothers breeding and selling her babies in Greece

Churches are no better
……..

Supervisor's mum gets 50 TBT payed for any big pack of onions sorted out and cleaned which takes between one and one and half day. Farmers come to her house, deliver the packs and taking them back.

They get usually just enough money to survive. The focus is in the job to be done. After that they get kicked away, often enough without any pay since there are unable to make any claims.

Maybe straight forward slavery was a better option since a slave once bought or raised was valuable property of his owner who took care in order of his own interests, spending food, shelter, clothing, medical care, training.

Supervisor's mum (Thai) gets 50 TBT paid for any big pack of onions sorted out and cleaned which takes between one and one and half day. Farmers come to her house, deliver the packs and taking them back. She likes her job and is busy from early mornings until daylight disappears

Some of the 'fellow feeling' that one expects in a trail on such oppression seems to have become twisted into 'unfeeling fellows' and the price I pay the oppressed. Jai Dee?

There's a long way to go before Thai boys' prices catch up with those in the West. Have you checked recently what it costs for an hour of pleasure (not "short time" -- an hour -- and not a second more) in New York, Paris, or London?