The Ministry of Labour has pushed forward on solving issues of foreign worker employment in the fisheries industry and the completeness of information from relevant agencies to be aligned to one another in order to be used effectively. Information includes fishing boats, fishery workers and boat inspections. He emphasized that foreign labour employment must be done legally and that after the 31st of March 2015, cases would be proceeded according the law and illegal labourers would be asked to leave the country.
Labour Minister General Surasak Karnjanarat gave an interview after the meeting to confer on directions to solving foreign labour issues in the fishery industry, stating that from the conference with relevant agencies such as the Department of Fisheries, the Marine Department, the Royal Thai Navy, the Marine Police Division and the Thai Overseas Fisheries Association, it was discussed that information about fishing boats, fishery workers and boat inspection must be aligned and able to be used together. This issue has been progressed on by relevant agencies with approximately 80 percent completed at present. As for the issue of legal fishing workers, there are approximately 80 percent of workers who are legal thus the remaining 20 percent must go through the legal processes before the 31st of March 2015. If workers are still found illegal after the mentioned date, they will be asked to leave the country.
In addition to this the meeting covered issues on how to attract workers into the fishing industry. The Ministry of Labour has already amended protection acts for workers in the fishing industry, forbidding the use of labourers under the age of 18 year, to inspect all fishing vessels that have been out the water for more than 1 year, establishments of clear contracts and also for employers to present reports on workers at least once a year, General Surasak stated.
http://www.mol.go.th/en/anonymouse/news/39986
Bureau of Public Affairs
7 November 2014
Kantipon Kusmith–News
