Hundreds of thousands of migrant workers who have been temporarily allowed to work in the country are at risk of becoming illegal as labour authorities struggle to meet a deadline in three weeks to register more than 1.6 million workers.
The critical situation has forced Labour Minister Adul Sangsingkeo to order authorities to shorten the migrant worker registration process at its one-stop service (OSS) centres.
According to the cabinet resolution on Jan 16, about 2 million migrant workers from Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia were temporarily allowed to work in the kingdom until March 31 this year.
Before the deadline, those migrant workers are required to register and update their profile and working status at the OSS centres so the authorities can consider extending their stay. To date, only about 400,000 migrant workers have registered at the OSS centres established since Feb 5. The authorities are struggling against time to register the remaining of 1.6 million migrant workers. There are only 80 OSS centres nationwide including five in Bangkok.
An authority source said it is tough to register 2 million workers in less than two months. In the past, the migrant worker registration period has taken three to four months.
Those workers who failed to register with authorities by the end of this month could become illegal overstayers, particularly those who have yet to undergo the national verification process, said the source. Of the 1.6 million migrant workers pending registration, 980,000 have undergone national verification.
The delay in national verification of migrant workers made Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha became angry last week.
When informed by authorities during an iris scan demonstration that nationality verification was progressing slowly because there were not enough scanners, Gen Prayut smashed his palm down on a desk and said: "Why didn't you buy more? This [task] should have been completed long ago."
The premier also hinted he would not postpone again the enforcement of a new law on migrant labour management that sparked controversy over its stiff penalties after the deadline for migrant worker registration.
To deal with the critical situation, the Labour Ministry has agreed to shorten the process in which the Interior Ministry's officials will keep workers' personal information and employment records without issuing them with pink cards with ID numbers, sources said.
The migrant workers are then required to undergo health exams at designated hospitals, report to authorities in the provinces where they work to get ID numbers and obtain work permits at provincial labour offices. All this can be done after March 30.
Minister Adul said shortening the process at the OSS centres should help officials serve more migrant workers and the operation will be evaluated on a daily basis.
"It will be used as a trial basis for one week and authorities will determine if it helps speed things up," he said.
According to Pol Gen Adul, at this stage extending the deadline is not an option because it is not within the ministry's authority but that of the cabinet.
Those who complete the entire registration process will be allowed to work in the country until March 31, 2020. However, work permits for those employed by the fishing industry are valid until March 31 next year.
A worker with an NGO on migrant labour has criticised the setting up of OSS centres as flawed, saying that requiring almost 2 million workers to report to authorities in two months is impractical.
"It's redundant and costly for the migrant workers," said the NGO worker who claimed many of those workers had proper documents including certificates of identity (CI) and temporary passports (TP).
A migrant worker who has visited an OSS centre said the centres are not a good choice in this case because certain procedures such as health checks are time-consuming. They must also seek a visa and work permit at the centres.
A handbook should be issued to officials at the OSS centres to prevent unnecessary delays. Some officials reportedly demand to see irrelevant documents such as the house registration of employers.
"It should become a routine. The employers, the workers and the officials should be aware of their duties and rights," he said.
