Official says dept looking into US concerns on migrant workers

Arthit said some bosses kept labourers’ passports for safekeeping while the workers were at sea fishing, or gathered the passports to proceed with worker registration. However, those who withheld workers’ passports for unsound reasons would be warned and, if they repeated such action, would be punished under the relevant laws, he said. Taking money out of workers’ pay to settle middlemen’s commissions was a violation of the Labour Protection Act 1998, he added.
He said the agency had also worked with police to arrest employers who engage in human trafficking.
Department of Employment chief Prawit Kiangpol said employment agents could only charge Thai workers for job placement overseas up to a maximum of two months’ salary plus real expenses, for which they had to show receipts. If the agents overcharged, their licence would be suspended and, if the offence were repeated, their licence would be revoked. Overcharging itself, however, isn’t a crime, but if the agents failed to send workers abroad that would be fraud, punishable under the criminal code and the labour law, he said.
Meanwhile, Sa Kaew police yesterday rounded up 23 undocumented Cambodian workers who were on the way to Rayong in a pick-up truck, along with two human-trafficking suspects, in Wattana Nakhon district. The Cambodians told police they paid Bt2,500 each to the gang. Police also arrested five Cambodian workers and their three motorcycle-taxi drivers as they crossed the border into Sa Kaew’s Khok Sung district. The workers allegedly paid Bt200 per person to be brought in to the country.
Sa Kaew police reported that in the five days up to and including the latest arrests, police had been involved in seven labourer-trafficking cases, in which eight Thai trafficking suspects and three Cambodian accomplices were arrested, seven pick-up trucks and three motorcycles seized, and 148 undocumented Cambodian workers rounded up.