TU's migrant worker education kicks off

The long-term labour-empowerment programme targets workers, mainly those from Myanmar, who are working at TU facilities in Thailand.
They will be educated on labour and social-welfare rights according to Thai law by the end of next year, and informed that all of the company’s facilities fully comply with these standards.
To Darian McBain, Thai Union Group director of sustainable development, helping migrant employees overcome language and cultural issues as well as obtaining information on their rights under Thai law is essential.
“Our corporate vision is to be the world’s most trusted seafood leader, and to achieve that we have to be a proactive leader of change in the seafood industry.
“Our customers and consumers worldwide demand sustainable products produced with good labour practices.
“We employ migrant workers in our Thai factories and treat them to the same high standards of labour rights and welfare as their Thai counterparts,” she explained.
McBain said the project with the MWRN was just one of the programmes launched in cooperation with the government, the private sector and others.
The first workshop with the MWRN took place on September 26, attended by 60 employees from a manufacturing facility in Samut Sakhon.
Andy Hall, international affairs adviser to the MWRN, said: “The MWRN has been regularly invited to audit Thai Union facilities and has also extensively researched labour conditions in these workplaces by interviewing TUF’s migrant employees.
“We are now actively working together with TUF to develop a more comprehensive partnership on these issues for the future, particularly focusing on worker rights education and effective auditing and enforcement of TUF’s core labour standards.”
Thai Union Group was until recently known as Thai Union Frozen Products (TUF).

Under pressure
Thai seafood companies have fallen under heavy pressure as the European Union threatens to ban Thai exports to the region on grounds that the Kingdom’s fishery industry does not comply with the EU’s standards on illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing.
The EU issued a yellow card to Thailand in April and evaluation of the country’s actions to address the issues is scheduled for later this month.
A red card, entailing a ban on imports, was issued to Cambodia in 2014.
The EU’s IUU regulation entered into force in 2010.
As the world’s biggest fish importer, the EU does not wish to be complicit and accept such products into its market.
The bloc has said that between 11 million and 26 million tonnes of fish – at least 15 per cent of world catches – are caught illegally every year, worth between 8 billion and 19 billion euros (Bt322 billion to Bt766 billion).
Meanwhile, TU itself is facing a fresh threat after a global campaign by Greenpeace.
Launched this past Monday, the campaign demands that the company – the world’s largest canned-tuna producer – take urgent and far-reaching steps to eliminate labour abuse and destructive and wasteful fishing practices from its supply chains.
TU sells canned tuna in several brands, including Chicken of the Sea in the United States and John West in the United Kingdom.
“We can no longer allow Thai Union and its brands around the world to sacrifice the world’s oceans and jeopardise workers at sea,” Greenpeace USA seafood-markets lead Graham Forbes said in a statement.
The organisation said the company caught tuna with fish-aggregating devices and longlining, methods that result in high levels of by-catch of sharks, turtles, juvenile tuna and seabirds.