In a move to address the problem of child labour in the seafood industry, 130 companies signed a memorandum of understanding yesterday pledging to adopt good labour practices (GLP) guidelines for workplace labour practices in the food and shrimp industries.
The move is aimed to help protect workers from practices such as child labour, forced labour, workplace discrimination and from sub-standard working conditions. The minimum age for employment under the Labour Protection Act is 15.
The companies signing the MoU are all regularly audited by other countries but the GLP should be implemented in the workplaces of other companies as well, labour activists suggest. Inspections by government agencies should be done intensively and factories should be aware of how subcontractors recruit workers.
The seafood sector exports around 1 million tonnes of seafood per year that is worth over 200 billion baht and the industry employs over 1 million people. Thailand is on the US's Tier 2 Watch List of countries producing goods by child labour or forced labour and risks being downgraded to Tier 3 which might lead to a range of trade sanctions.