Child Care Center for Thai Workers and Families
in the Era of Globalization

Somyos Phruksakasemsuk

The Alliance of Democratic Trade Unions

The capitalist mode of production is characterized by the production of  commodities which aims at generating the utmost profits for capital accumulation. Such kind of production is at the expense of workers who are to be exploited by having to contribute their labour as much as possible but getting the least payment for it. Workers under the capitalist system are therefore subjected to working under inhuman working conditions and living a low quality of live. They live only to utilize their labour for production of commodities which generate profits for capitalists. Moreover, their way of life is determined by the type of machine and technology used in the production process and regulated by the rules of capitalists. The system of shift work distorts many workers’ way of living .

As a consequence, workers are subjected to depressed and alienated lives. Under industrialised society, extended families have to give way to a single family, seperating workers from the chain of relations they once had with family members and close relatives. From integrated, they now turn to be seperated family members, among whom mutual trust and mutual reliance can no longer be easily established.

Under the capitalist system, the working life is seperated from the family life. Only working hours and the ability to produce are valued, while payments are carefully culculated to make sure that the labour cost of production is kept at the lowest amount while profits at the highest possible. Concretely described, the culculation of wage is based only on the number of working hours and the ability to produce during the time workers are on duty at the workplace. Workers’ family and social lives which have their own cost are not taken into consideration at all. This can be seen from the fact, for example, that a modest demand for a special allowance for female workers during pregnancy, eventhough it is only a tiny amount of money, was usually refused by entreprenures. The given reason was that pregnancy has nothing to do with the working process and it was not the employer but the husband who make them pregnant, therefore they should claim this allowance from the husband, not the employer . Not only the allowance is refused, pregnant workers are often dismissed. This is because pregnancy is cosidered by employers as a loss of working hours or a decrease of labour productivity . Therefore, a call for a child care center is thus impossible. Such attitudes confirm our point that the capitalist mode of production does not take the family and social lives of workers into consideration at all. In other words, workers are not taken as human beings.

Man actually lives not only to produce and earn his living. He needs also his family and social life. The family life provides his relaxation after long working hours. Without a family life, a worker will find it difficult to recharge his energy to cope with the hard work of the following day. The social and family life has also a function of labour reproduction. It does not only regenerate his own labour power, but produces also the next generation of workers for our society. Without families to produce the next generation of workers, our socio-economic system can surely not survive. Thus, the worker’s family life is considered to be an important and valuable economic force. As the workers’ family life plays a significant role in our economy and society, it is a social duty and responsibility of us all to take care that workers can afford a decent family life. This means, all enterprises must provide payments and welfare which cover not only the well-being of workers themselves, but also the necessary expenses needed for their family and social lives as well. Investment on child care centers should be made either by the government or the enterprises. It can be set up either in the vicinity of a workplace or in a workers’ community within an industrial area.

Life of a single family, both members of which have to work for wages, makes it impossible for a couple to take care of their own offsprings. When enterprises take no responsibility for the children of their workers, the burden is left to the old grandparents in the countryside. Such situation turns workers’ family life into hardship and breaks it. Such way of life is a cruel reality which most workers and their families have to face. The fact that workers have to carry the burden of bringing up children by themselves without any assistance from their employers, means nothing but an exploitation of labour by capitalists and a violation of human rights. As workers find it more and more difficult to cope with the burden, a call for child care support has been increasingly made. On the 8th March of every year, Thai workers make it a point to remind the government and their employers of such a pressing need. Eventhough this movement is at present still limited, but as the agricultural society is on the way to collapse and workers are gradually loosing the back-up and support from the countryside, it is highly possible that such movement will become enlarged and more powerful in the near future. To make the issue of a child care center become a priority demand of workers is one of the challenging tasks of the Thai labour movement.

Let us unite to demand from the government and the employers their social investment in setting up child care centers for the productive future of Thai children .