Migrants risk losing right to work, stay

Staff bemoan complicated operation

Numerous companies and migrant workers have voiced concerns about issues relating to the new registration and work force registration requirements, which are alleged to have caused a large number of migrant workers to miss the deadline and lose their constitutional status.

A representative of Nai Chang Si Khao ( White Employers ), Nilubol Pongpayom, said yesterday that the employer group had previously petitioned the government to change the requirements to make migrant registration and work permit renewal more convenient.

According to Ms. Nilubol, it has yet to receive a response because hundreds of thousands of migratory laborers have missed the Oct. 31 deadline and turned into illegal workers.

There are only seven CI centers nationwide, and she claimed the Certificate of Identity ( CI), an additional document required for migrant worker registration, was way too complicated.

She attributed the unjust treatment that many companies and migratory workers claim to have been subjected to to state officials ‘ allegedly poor control of these centers to their alleged poor care.

The CI center in Samut Prakan, for example, demanded migrant employees pay a CI payment of between 3, 800 and 4, 000 ringgit without issuing them a correct ticket, Ms Nilubol said.

She claimed that the procedure involved several fees and was rather difficult.

According to there merely being seven CI areas, many migrant workers had to travel to nearby counties, she said.

Another batch of migrant workers whose work grants are scheduled to expire on February 13 will have to go back to their country of origin and re-enter the process before being registered to work in Thailand, according to Ms. Nilubol.

A 30-year-old Myanmar employee who requested anonymity claimed to have worked legally for a sizable Samut Sakhon corporation and had paid her taxes for years.

She missed a deadline on October 1 because of problems with the new CI need, the woman claimed, and thus presently qualifies as an illegal migrant worker.

” I have been living and working around, paid all my fees and have social security. However, due to this challenging procedure, I was unable to meet the deadline and became incapacitated.

A 28-year-old man from Myanmar who has a work force that will expire on February 13 claimed he was uneasy about moving back to his home state, where he would ultimately contribute money to the ruling junta.