By Miriam Joffe-Block,recently on a Fulbright research study on Labour Organising in Thailand where she worked with the Thai Labour Campaign and CLIST; Miriam has also been active in the USAS anti-sweatshop movement.
On 28 June 2001, Jamnien Wannawongsa, a 39 year old worker from the Ladybird Garment Company located in Samutprakan, Thailand, was arrested in front of the Thai Parliament building, cited with blocking traffic. “I wasn’t afraid,” said Ms. Jamnien, reflecting on her experience, “because I knew that I wasn’t doing anything wrong.”
Jamnien and 100 other workers from Ladybird, students, and NGO representatives had marched to Parliament to demand that the Thai government take action to resolve their labour dispute over failed contract negotiations. Workers were in the third week of a lockout and management was refusing to compromise on any of their demands. Jamnien and other members of The Garment Industry Union were attacked by police and arrested in what was one of the most high profile labour disputes of the year.
A history of violations
Ladybird Garment Company Limited has been producing children’s clothing for export since 1987. Workers formed a union at the company in 1996 in order to push the company to pay legal Thai wages. At that time workers were earning only 100 to 110 baht per day, instead of the legal 152 baht (US$3.50; US$1 = 45 baht). Prior to the union, the company had a record of violating local labour laws by not giving workers legal holidays and not allowing pregnant women their legally mandated 90 day paid maternity leave.
Ladybird currently employs about 530 workers, 90 percent of them women. Before the dispute in June 2001, the union had about 200 members. Many employees could not afford to be union members because of the employer’s policy of prohibiting union members from working overtime in the factory. Basic wages in Thailand in the garment industry are so low that the jobs are only attractive to workers because of the potential overtime wages that they offer. A worker earning the current minimum wage of 165 baht per day can increase her earnings to 257 baht per day if she works three hours of overtime, amounting to an extra 552 baht over a six day working week. For workers supporting family members, these supplemental wages are essential and employers know that the pressure to feed one’s children can outweigh even a dedicated unionist’s desire to take part in collective action.
Aside from the anti-union discrimination, other complaints at the factory going into the dispute were the abysmal wages (with many workers earning only a few baht above the minimum wage after years of work), lack of an annual bonus (paying a bonus is a widespread practice in Thai factories), filthy conditions in the cafeteria, lack of sufficient transportation to and from the factory, and the absence of a legally required full-time nurse in the factory.
Workers begin the struggle
In late April, 386 workers from Ladybird signed their names to a set of demands to start the collective bargaining process. Workers chose to bargain on behalf of the whole workforce, rather than just the union, to allow temporary workers who were not allowed to join the union, to sign on to the demands. These demands included changing the system to raise wages from being based on a grade system (where workers are classified into a grade based on the quality of their work) to a seniority system based on the number of years worked in the factory. Workers also asked for compensation for pregnant women, who are legally prohibited from working overtime and whose wages thus decrease as soon as the employer learns that they are pregnant.
Management tactics
The signed demand prompted aggressive pressure from the company to get workers to withdraw their names from collective bargaining demands. Management made personal calls on workers’ homes, promising incentives such as full salary in the event of a strike or lockout if the employee would withdraw her signature. In early May, management claimed that only 150 workers had retained their signatures on the collective bargaining demands and the company imposed restrictions on these 150 workers which included freezing all of their wages for three years. Meanwhile, the company began hiring temporary workers to ensure that production would not be disrupted in the event of a strike.
The company, managed by Mr. Veerasak Ratanapraphas, had stacked their negotiating team with Somboon Sripirommit, a former Provincial Labour Officer from Samutsakorn province and Paibul Thamsatitman, a hardline anti-union lawyer and advisor to Thai Durable Textile Company, another factory in Samutprakan with a long running labour dispute.
When two-party negotiations did not yield any agreements, negotiations were continued with mediators from the Samutprakan Provincial Labour Office. Workers were dismayed at how government officers tried to persuade them to negotiate on the employer’s ridiculous demand of freezing wages for three years. The union responded by organising a march and demonstration outside the Provincial Labour Office in order to increase public pressure on government authorities.
Increasing the pressure
On 11 June in accordance with Thai labour law, the employer ordered a lockout of the 77 workers who were identified as leaders of the effort behind the collective bargaining push. Workers realised it was time to take their struggle beyond the local industrial district in Samutprakan, and broaden the appeal to national and international groups. They urged Ministry of Labour officials to mediate in the negotiations, and on 20 June marched to the Ministry to show support for their representatives. When they were refused access to the building, they scaled the fences to get inside and refused to leave the premises until they were able to meet Ladawan Wongsriwong, Deputy Minister of Labour.
At the same time the national and international appeal was rewarded with positive responses. The Amsterdam-based Clean Clothes Campaign, the International Textile Garment and Leather Workers Federation, and the American-based Campaign for Labour Rights demanded that Ladybird’s customers tell the employer to negotiate in good faith. Italian unions applied pressure on PreNatal and its parent company, Artsana, both Italian owned.
The union kept up correspondence with the company’s customers and demanded that as the primary beneficiaries of factory production, these customers should push for an end to the lockout and for real negotiations to begin. Workers carried signs to every protest admonishing retailers Gymboree, Guess?, and TJ Max for their common failure to secure even minimal wage increases. Local media coverage of the lockout and protests prompted Gymboree to send representatives through its quality control company, Merchandise Testing Laboratories (Thailand) Limited, to meet the locked out workers.
On 28 June, after negotiations at the Ministry of Labour had failed to produce any real results, workers took their struggle to the Thai Parliament. Every day of the lockout meant a day without wages and they knew that by hiring replacement employees and sending goods out to be subcontracted, the employer could keep production up to normal levels even with 77 employees locked out.
Workers sang and chanted outside Parliament for Prime Minister Thaksin’s cabinet to intervene in the dispute until police asked them to leave. When they refused the police violently broke up the demonstration, pushing and jostling workers, arresting three. “The police used their badges and their power to try to silence us,” Jamnien, who serves as the union’s public relations officer, recalls, “They said that we were causing trouble by blocking the street.”
Negotiated agreement
With mounting pressure from his customers and with government officials finally telling him he had to compromise, Mr. Veerasak and worker representatives were able to sign a contract on 2 July. The contract failed to make wage raises become based on seniority, but workers did get a pay rise and won compensation for pregnant women, making them one of the few workforces in the country to have such an agreement. The contract also gave the union paid time off for union activities, had provisions for incentive pay, provisions for adequate company transport and required the company to clean up the cafeteria. The agreement also allowed the 77 locked out workers to return to work immediately without repercussions or retaliation from management.
Union members are proud of the campaign they waged. Wanna Niyom, 42 year-old president of the union from southern province Nakhon Sri Thammarat, said, “I feel that we achieved one important level of success: we showed our employer that we can fight at the international level and we showed the capacity of Thai workers to the international community.” Union members also point to real gains from their struggle such as workers now have incentive pay for the first time; the infirmary is now clean and staffed with a full time nurse; and union committee members can take time off to attend seminars and training sessions on labour issues.
Although there have been improvements in the factory since the dispute was resolved, workers point out that the employer has not entirely kept up his side of the agreement. Three months after signing the agreement workers report that the cafeteria still serves as a storage place for machinery, company transport is still not adequate, and women must return to work after maternity leave in order to receive compensation. The most serious remaining problem is that discrimination against unionists continues, particularly prohibition on overtime, making it extremely difficult for the union to recruit new members.
Broader implications
It is hoped that Ladybird’s victory will spur more progressive organising. While most unions in Thailand are enterprise-based unions, workers at Ladybird are members of The Garment Industry Worker’s Union, an industrially-based union. So far the union only has members from Ladybird and one other garment factory, but the hope is to expand membership to more workplaces.
Enterprise level organising in Thailand is one of the structural weaknesses of the labour movement. According to Yauwapa Bonsae, an organiser with the Bangkok-based Centre for Labour Information Services and Training (CLIST) which provided support to the workers at Ladybird during their campaign, workers’ clout with employers ends at factory level and sympathy strikes are illegal. Industrial level unions on the other hand facilitate sympathy strikes between union members at different work sites, so workers joining the union from newly organised factories can avoid the risky union registration process which often results in firings. [See also article about the Korean struggle on page 14 for another example where employers divide and rule by limiting union activity to the enterprise where they work]
Workers at Ladybird were victorious in that they were able to keep the usually reluctant Thai government involved with the case. Garment industry earnings in Thailand were valued at $US3,372.7 million in 2000 and government officials usually try to minimise conflict to ensure continuous production. Although the state does not habitually use force to suppress labour activity in Thailand as is common in some Asian countries, when workers such as Ladybird union members protest, they are admonished by Thai government officials for portraying Thailand as a country with labour unrest and for not keeping the atmosphere ripe for investment. When labour problems cannot be settled through worker’s reducing or dropping their demands, a common government tactic is to persuade workers to accept severance pay and leave the factory. Government officials rarely place pressure on influential businessmen and few conflicts are resolved when union members actually go back to work. At least one other factory management with a growing union, posted pictures of Ladybird workers being arrested in front of Parliament, warning workers that this would be their fate if they joined the union. Ladybird’s victory - with workers going back to work with an improved contract, is important encouragement for thousands of non-unionised garment workers in nearby companies.
Ladybird’s struggle also has implications for international campaigns targeting TNCs. At least one of its main customers, Gymboree finds suppliers through the Hong Kong-based global product-supply giant, Li and Fung. Li and Fung prides itself on being the world’s fastest in the field - dispersing orders at the touch of a button for retail clients such as Gymboree or Express, to a network of 7,500 factories around the world. While the system allows Li and Fung to promise clients the ‘right price at the right time’, the constant shifting of orders with managers changing or cancelling orders at the last minute in a scramble to keep prices low, creates job insecurity for workers. Holding TNCs accountable for conditions in the factories producing their goods is much more difficult when those TNCs only do business with a product-supplier, like Li and Fung, but have no direct relationship with the factory that produces the goods. In the case of Ladybird, workers were able to hold Gymboree accountable for factory conditions; it is not yet clear how international strategies will change as more and more TNCs shed relationships with their contractors and opt for the low cost, maximum flexibility system offered by Li and Fung.
Prohibiting union members working overtime at Ladybird clearly reflects one of the most disturbing trends in the global apparel industry: workers cannot support themselves on basic wages. Despite claims by TNCs that workers producing their goods earn more than legal minimum wages, more often than not workers cannot survive on these wages because they do not constitute wages that can support a family. Because of this, members of the union at Ladybird are forced to earn a supplementary income in order to make ends meet, with some workers taking up secondary jobs in the evenings in subcontracting workshops. Here they are paid by the piecework system and ironically may be producing goods sent out to be subcontracted by the very factory in which they work. In response to sustained criticism some TNCs now urge their contractors to limit workers’ hours of overtime, but there seems to be no effort whatsoever to raise basic wages to a level that covers essential living expenses.
For most workers at Ladybird the labour dispute and the fight they waged was a new experience, and for many it was a politically transforming process. “Our numbers were small but our strength was great,” says Wassana Lakhampha, a 28 year old from Khon Kaen province in the northeast who serves as the education officer of the union. “We didn’t get all of our demands, but we had a good struggle. Our victory was our struggle.”