Construction workers have accused the government of leaving mostly migrant workforces to fend for themselves after ordering their camps to cease operations and barring the workers from leaving.
Migrant workers have suffered during this latest wave of the pandemic, they said. They have been abandoned with neither food and supplies to sustain them nor financial aid to tide them over during the two-month suspension of the camps, the workers said.
During a discussion organised by the House committee on labour and non-governmental labour development groups, Thanaporn Wijan, a representative of a network of workers in the building material industry, said the pandemic has exposed what happens when migrant workers are not members of the Social Security Fund (SSF).
The workers should be protected by the social security programme because they are among the Covid-19 at-risk groups. Yet without membership, they do not receive the maximum 7,500 baht-a-month of compensation from the SSO or vaccination jabs, Ms Thanaporn said.
Anchalee Ananwat, a member of the Doo Lae Kan Eng (Self-Care Group), said food was hard to come by at several camps during the prolonged lay-off.
The suspension was hastily implemented with no action plan to carry it through effectively, she said, adding that treatment to workers sick with Covid-19 at the sites was in some cases too slow or inadequate.
Suthep U-on, chairman of the House committee on labour and a Move Forward Party MP, said the government appeared to lack data on the number of camp site workers.
"The authorities may have succeeded in shutting down the building sites but they failed to limit the spread of the disease," he said.
He said many workers have had to nurse themselves back to health.
Somchai Morakotsriwan, deputy director-general of the Department of Employment, told the seminar the department spent much of its migrant labour management fund buying meals for workers. It delivered them to camp sites so the workers could at least have two good meals a day.
Some camps turned down the offer of free meals because they were able to supply their own, he said, adding the system will be improved in the future to automatically enrol workers including migrants in the SSF so they will be entitled to protection.