“Solution for THAILAND: GSP Suspension Caused by Labour Rights Violations in Thailand”, 8 January 2020

Thailand has long-accumulated labor problems, having not been seriously resolved by Thai government... Four leaders of Thai Airways International Union were…ordered to pay 3,479,793 THB regarding the assembly at Thai Airways International Public Company Limited in 2013. The union at Mitsubishi Electric Consumers have been either completely destroyed or near non- existence after the workers succumbed to severe anti-union strategies…The defamation lawsuits filed by Thammakaset against the activists, workers, reporters, and former national human rights commissioner have not been resolved and got worsened.

…[M]ore violations of workers’ right and anti-union discriminations are happening every day…[O]ver 30 union members from Mizuno Plastic…were laid off one day after holding their first union congress, and 700 union members…at company named “Pongpara Codan”…lost their jobs after the company shut down its operation only to re-open under new name at the same location and with the same ownership while asking the selected group of laid off workers to re-apply for jobs with wages and benefits reset…

…Failure to resolve labor rights in Thailand to meet international standards resulted that on October 26, 2560, the U.S. government announced the suspension of 1.3 billion USD, or 39.3 billion THB in trade preferences for Thailand under the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) with 573 Thai products temporarily. It will be effective on April 25, 2020…

[I]n order…to return the GSP benefits on 573 Thai products, ITUC (International Trade Union Confederation) together with 3 other global unions, namely European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC), the IndustriALL Global Union, and the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF)…demanded the Thai government to improve the labor rights situation in Thailand...

The State Enterprise Workers' Relations Confederation (SERC.)…would like to recommend the Thai government to intensively work with legitimate Thai trade unions to promote the decent work as a guideline to solve the labour problems sustainably…