‘A shameful situation’

(Editor’s note: Sandra Engle, assistant director in the UAW National Organizing Department, visited Thailand in April. Here is her first-person account of the trip.)

The boss retaliates against union leaders. Management tries to break contracts. Laws protecting workers’ rights to form a union are weak.

Sound familiar? As a UAW organizer, I see this all the time — except this time I was seeing it halfway around the world in Thailand.

The Solidarity Center of the AFL-CIO sent two UAW international representatives to Thailand in April to build relationships with the Thailand Automobile Workers (TAW), their federation of auto unions. Brad Markell of the UAW Research Department also went.

A ‘crash course’

When we landed in Bangkok, we got a crash course in unions, Thai-style. To form unions in the United States, workers must show a majority of support to get recognition, whether it’s through card check or an election conducted by the National Labor Relations Board. The UAW always tries to build as much support as possible because the real campaign is about getting a good first contract.

In Thailand unions are registered when 10 workers apply to the government for a union. Even if the workforce has 10,000 workers, only 10 are needed to register. However, in order to demand collective bargaining, 15 percent to 20 percent of the workforce must support the union. This means unions often start bargaining before they are in a position of power. The law forbids unions from having full-time representatives, which keeps Thai unions struggling to properly organize and service members.

Despite these challenges, TAW unions have been successful in organizing 13.6 percent of the auto industry.

Meeting the TAW

Our visit started with meeting the TAW leadership. Its current president, Vanchai Phudvaree, also heads the Honda Thailand Labor Union. Their first question was how the UAW felt about the Thailand Free Trade Agreement (FTA). We made it clear that our union opposed it because it would lift the 25 percent tariff on imported light pickups and flood our market. They were sympathetic to our position, going so far as to acknowledge that the growth in the Thai auto industry would be at the expense of our members.

The TAW explained that the growing use of temporary workers is a major issue for them. Some estimated up to half of their workers in the auto industry are temps.

Two things struck me at that first meeting. First, the TAW encompasses a tremendous variety of plants: Toyota, Mitsubishi, Ford, General Motors, Honda, Hino and Nissan, among them. Second, there was a sense of great respect and admiration for UAW history and our achievements. They were well aware of the role the UAW plays to set standards for health and safety, wages and benefits.

Thai Summit ‘shocking’

The most moving moments came on the third day when we made the long drive out to Rayong province to meet with union members. Rayong is the home of Ford Motor Co. and General Motors, two newcomers to the Thai auto industry. In Rayong, we learned about one of Ford’s suppliers, Thai Summit. Earlier this year, their workers were involved in a contract struggle which led to a lockout and an eventual return to work with arbitration. If the story ended there, it would not be remarkable. But what Thai Summit did next was shocking: They took 266 union supporters out of the plant and sent them to training on topics such as “The Etiquette of Living Together” and “Consciousness Building.”

I’m not talking about one or two classes. These daylong classes have been going on since Feb. 1. By taking workers out of the plant, they deprived them of the chance to make overtime or earn a bonus (nearly half of a worker’s take-home pay is in their bonus). About 50 workers have already quit.

In an auditorium-style classroom, we met with the workers in training, who travel there every day in ancient buses. Most workers live in nearby dormitories. On that 100-degree day, one worker — a young woman who was about seven months pregnant — passed out from the overcrowded bus and oppressive heat. It’s a shameful situation, one designed to break the morale of union supporters. Since our return, the company has moved the classes into a warehouse where they don’t even have desks and chairs.

Win-win at Toyota

Not all stories we heard were about struggles. When we visited the Toyota Thailand Workers’ Union, we learned about their 26-year history with the company, where management views the 4,600 members as an integral part of Toyota’s success.

“We are partners,” said their president, Pongthep Chaiwan.

The “Toyota Way in Labor Management” was a pragmatic prescription of labor relations based on mutual trust and respect. And given their track record at the bargaining table, it seems that it isn’t just rhetoric. I explained that Toyota workers in the United States also want to join a union to gain the same level of dignity and respect. Chaiwan was surprised that Toyota would oppose organizing in the United States.

The future

We’re constantly told that we live in a global economy. Undoubtedly, so-called free trade has wrecked American families and savaged our cherished auto industry. But the outsourcing of our jobs is not prompted by workers in other countries. It’s being masterminded by powerful people with titles like “analyst,” “investment banker” or “consultant” who have never broken a sweat or gotten a callous in their lives. And their bidding is being done by the very corporations we have worked to make successful.

The bottom line is this: When workers are pitted against one another, we lose. But when we work together, we are awesome. We must figure out a way to work on issues we have in common, knowing that we might not always agree.