An internship programme intended to equip vocational students with work experience before graduating needs a review as loopholes existed through which interns may be exploited, according to labour activists.
The so-called "cooperative education" programme agreed between some vocational institutes and businesses, mostly in the industrial sector, is being questioned over the way it is practised which works for the benefit of some businesses at the expense of the interns.
Some vocational students who have entered the paid internship programmes were underpaid and worked overtime without pay and welfare benefits.
Chalee Loisung, secretary-general of the Confederation of Thai Electrical Appliances, Electronics and Metal Workers, said his group has brought the problem to the attention of the Labour Ministry although the issue appears to have fallen on deaf ears.
Complaints to the abuse of the programme have been coming in for five years, Mr Chalee said.
He said the issue is commonplace particularly in the auto and electrical appliances industries. One factory in an industrial estate in an eastern province is accused of hiring more than 1,000 vocational students as interns without giving them employment benefits, according to Mr Chalee.
The problem was brought under the spotlight recently when a female student was reportedly injured from being scalded in the face by hot industrial oil during her work as intern at a company.
The incident underscored a lack of workplace safety and treatment of interns as cheap labour, he said.
The core principle of the so-called "cooperative education" programme is to help vocational students gain on-the-job work experience. However, many students are paid the minimum daily wage or even lower while enduring the same workload as full-time staff.
They are sometimes told to work overtime with no extra pay.
In practice, many interns under the programme work as many hours if not more than the fully-paid staff but are not protected by the labour law or given the welfare entitlements they deserve, Mr Chalee said.
An unnamed labour activist in the auto-making industry said many student interns work up to eight hours a day and are regularly rostered to do unpaid overtime jobs.
Also, they are not allowed to take days off or even a sick leave.
Some students confronted the employers about their unfair employment conditions only to see their internship terminated as punishment, Mr Chalee said.
A vocational student of electrical mechanics, who declined to be named, said he was sent to work in a woodwork section of an audio speaker-manufacturing factory, which he found incompatible with his area of study.
Ananchai Uthaiphattanacheep, director- general of the Department of Labour Protection and Welfare (DLPW), said a clear rule must be set over what interns can and cannot do at workplaces.
His department has asked the Office of the Vocational Education Commission and the provincial vocational education committees to help put the rule in practice.
In principle, students are not allowed to, for instance, work overtime or work on their off days and public holidays, Mr Ananchai said.
An exact period of internship must also be agreed to by both the students and the businesses as required by the 1998 Labour Protection Act. Also, no job deemed to imperil the students' safety must be assigned to the interns, he added.
A labour source insisted the way many companies are hiring interns under the programme constitutes employment under the 1998 labour protection law and employers cannot evade their responsibility in providing the interns adequate care and protection.
The source said many employers are exploiting the legal loopholes to hire students and making them work like permanent staff while refusing to inform them about their labour rights and benefits.
Suradet Wali-itthikul, secretary-general of the Social Security Office, said student interns who work for more than two months during school break are entitled to coverage under the social security system. The work of such a period is considered to be a full-time job. Thamrongsak Khongkhasawat, an adviser on human resources at the DLPW, said the DLPW plans to carry out a public campaign to raise awareness about the need to protect the rights of student interns.
In the campaign, companies will be reminded of what they can and cannot do with the students serving the internship.
For example, students are not allowed by law to be hired to work overtime as they should have sufficient time to rest and review what they have learned from their internship in a given day, Mr Thamrong said.
Suthep Chitayawong, secretary-general of the Vocational Education Commission, said he has instructed vocational colleges to closely monitor their students joining the scheme to prevent them being exploited as cheap workers.