Labour laws outdated
Re: “Complaints grow against migrant ‘job snatchers,’” (BP, Jan 18).
When I was in the Los Angeles Public Library walking to the men’s restroom, a white man launched a totally unprovoked flying kick at me, screaming, “You Vietnamese (sic) steal our jobs!”. Reading that our Labour Ministry’s received complaints that migrants were working in jobs reserved for Thais reminded me of that.
The sine qua non for a law is that it must benefit the country in the long term. Occupations like the military or government must be reserved for nationals because national security is concerned. But barriers to entry must not work against our long-term interests. For example, we reserve lottery selling for the handicapped because we don’t give them the same quality of education that we give the able-bodied. We forbid foreign nationals from being tourist guides — but desperately need their nationals to tour Thailand and lack Thais who are fluent in Chinese, Russian, Arabic, etc. We insist on kicking own goals.
Our national interests demand that all Thais be able to develop to their fullest potential. Thus, we owe all Thais equal (and very high) quality of education — whether handicapped or not. Requiring guides to be Thai would be acceptable in the first two years so we can learn other languages, but after that, we should compete with all comers.
The TDRI reported that one of our key problems was that our laws were woefully out of date. I suggest that our labour law banning foreigners is definitely one of them.