Workers at a fish market in Samut Sakhon province, west of Bangkok (SOurce: AP) Bangkok (VNA) –Thailand’s fisheries association plans to pay its employees through bank accounts from April or May 2018 in an effort to prevent forced labour.
It is according to a report of the International Labour Organization (ILO) on conditions for fishermen and seafood processing workers in Thailand.
Before it begins enforcing the order, the association will need to issue new employment contracts to migrant workers in the seafood and fishing industries.
Jarin Jakkaphak, Permanent Secretary of the Labour Ministry said that the policy to pay through bank accounts will ensure greater transparency and fairness to workers in the seafood and fishing industry.
Thailand's seafood industry has come under scrutiny in recent years after investigations showed slavery, trafficking and violence on fishing boats and at onshore processing facilities.
According to an ILO official in Bangkok, deductions and delays in payments are hard to track when workers are paid in cash. The workers did not get pay slips, so they didn't know how much they were paid, how much was held back and how much they were still owed, said the official.
More than half the estimated 600,000 workers in the industries are registered migrant workers. Nearly a fourth of the workers ILO surveyed said they had experienced delayed and partial payments.-VNA
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